Thursday,Sep 29 2005, 04:55:06 PMThe Monday

This past Monday was kind of eventful.

If you live in North Cal (by that I mean near Sacramento, not Bay Area), you probably know that there was a thunderstorm and some hard raining on Monday. i woke up to a cold morning and cloudy weather. It feels like a winter day. After getting to work, it was still cloudy the whole day -- something you don't see often in September around here.

Here's the point: I felt so much more motivated to work and so much less bad for not being outside to be hanging out. I actually felt like staying in the office. I think, come winter I'm probably really going to like working. It just felt like the right thing to do. Don't ask why. I think it's just that in summer days it just feels like the right thing to do to be outside and chill with people, not be in the office working for the whole sunlight's time of the day. That's why I never wanted to come to work the whole summer.

But anyway. It still remains a scary thing that there was a thunderstorm and rain on a September day in NorCal. I think the two hurricanes lately affected the weather in a lot of other places in the states (or maybe the world too). I think it didn't rain that much until evening when I got off work. I got off work at 6:45 or so that day since I wanted to wait for people to go dinner at Sac. On the way to Sac, I saw probably 10 lightnings. I'm talking about the ones with a thin bright line coming down from the sky, not the ones where it just blinks. And it was close to the freeway I was driving past too. It felt like something along the lines of Independence Day or Day After Tomorrow was going to happen. With the recent natural events, I'm not too surprised...

But I guess it's not "the time" yet. I got back home safe at the end..

---

一本正經　我亦試過了
愛侶到底　要負責　教對方知曉
一起有什麼　比嬉戲重要

可惜我的　說話太惹笑
眼看這刻　我共你　已快將觸礁
心中正著急　開口卻亂了

其實我都很清楚我　年齡亦不少
該收斂下來　學會怎　製造情調

　從來亦未　會正正經經
　情人在問　何時才轉性
　平平實實　按照你所需　給反應
　如若愛定你請　明明白白　說說我心聲
　浮浮蕩蕩　何時才會坐定
　誰願最後嫁給　這攪笑巨星　心領

原諒我只精於講笑　其餘未講清
彷彿怕肉麻　待你好　卻未承認

為何現在　卻戰戰競競
遲遲鈍鈍　仍然無法確定
情話太像笑話　問誰願意聽　要命

Sunday,Sep 25 2005, 08:07:04 AMdeath

recently had an extraordinary amount of conversations with different people about death... to be honest, there was a period of time before that i believed that there would be no afterlife, and once a person dies, that's it. i thought it was silly of people to believe that there is another world, because that's not part of our science. that might be a bit too scientifically-based. actually, when i grew up more, and experience more things, i'm starting to believe otherwise. there are reasons people think there IS something after passing away, and these reasons begin to make sense. of course, there is also always the saying that science can't explain everything. there is even a chance that all the science in our world right now is wrong. but really, no matter what kind of "evidence" people have, the possibility of what happens after you die is endless. it could be the ordinary reincarnation system that a lot of religions believe in -- where you would exist in some sort of ghost form, and then at some point you reincarnate into a different human being or even animal/insect in the next life. actually that would be the way most chinese believe it to be, because that is the general belief of buddhism (i think). i don't exactly know how it goes with catholic/christianity but i think it involves going to either heaven or hell, and i'm not really sure how reincarnation works (or if it exists at all) in these religions. or, it could be totally something else that is not from a major religion. for example, (this is something i completely made up) perhaps there is a world of infinite space where all beings that died get sent to. and there would be no reincarnations. there is no distinction of heaven or hell for good and bad guys, it'd just be one place. everything that ever lived and died in this dimension went there and stay there forever, and because of the infinite space, this is fine. it then sort of exists as a parallel universe to this dimension. or, you could argue that our universe right now is already infinite. which is true (to our science anyway). so it could be that things that died on earth are simply transported to another planet in some way to continue life there. they actually exist in the same dimension we do now. or, perhaps it just goes on and on. when we die here, we get sent to the next planet to start the next life. when we die there again, we move on to the next planet after that. it really could be anything. it really could be anything and logic analysis is pointless because all of our "logic" and "science" now only make sense to us. what if we are only part of a toy? maybe in a bigger world, this entire earth, this entire universe is only part of a toy of a little kid in that world. just like how we control characters in computer games now. after all, humans are coded. that's what DNA is. in our world, we can only code in binary system with 0's and 1's (that's because our technology sucks, comparing to theirs). but in that bigger world they have more advanced technology so they can code with 4 letters. all the while we try to study how the universe works and how the human code works, the kid is looking at our behaviors and laughing at us. in that sense, the "dream" theory also works. maybe this entire world, your entire life time, is simply one night of dream of the real you in the bigger world. how can you tell that is not the case? in that case, all of our arguments about afterlife would be pointless because this is not even a life. maybe, just maybe, our afterlife really depends on our religious believes. in that case, if you are catholic/christian when you are human, you would really go to heaven forever. if you are a buddhist, you would really reincarnate. so they exist parallel-y entirely based on your believes. who knows?

Thursday,Sep 22 2005, 06:51:59 AMSB/LA/LV

5 day trip. Took Friday, Monday and Tuesday off.

it wasn't because I needed a break from work or something (Oregon trip of 2 weeks ago was already a good break), it was just because it's the only time my friends (still in school) can go on a trip somewhere.

Set off on Friday early morning (5am~), took off to Santa Barbara, where we spent the whole Friday. UCSB campus is all right, not too bad. In some aspects it's better than Davis, but in general I think I like Davis more.. most importantly, the 15%~ or so Asian population kind of scares me -- that's less than my high school. one good thing about SB is the downtown though. Even though it's somewhat far away from campus (comparing to Davis or Berkeley) it's got a real nice downtown, like SF-style downtown... where you can actually go shopping at. Not that it really matters to me.. but yeah. Dinner was at a sushi place in Santa Barbara. It costed me a fortune ($20+) and didn't fill me up at all. This "quality over quantity" stuff is definitely not for me.

Saturday was LA day. spent most of the day at this really fobby plaza in LA called Diamond Plaza or something.. literally every shop in the plaza are so HK/TW style.. the arcade has all Japanese cabinets only, has Japanese/HK-only games (those not found in American arcades); there's a comic place, a dessert place.. and so on. I wouldn't mind living near here... We went karaoke for the later part of the day. Dinner was at an expensive Korean place. It's got good food, but for its price ($20+ again), I wouldn't eat here again.

Sunday and Monday were Vegas days!! Daytime was mostly walking around seeing different hotels, shopping with the girls, playing at Game Works, and random stuff like that. First night dinner was at Bellagio, it again costed a fortune ($30) but it was great, it's almost worth the price (actually, in Vegas price standards, it is). Small gambling here and there during the day I ended up with +$10 or so at the end of the first day, which I promptly spent on a Long Island Iced Tea that costed exactly that amount. So Monday I started my gambling record on even. After dinner, all of us except Simon went to watch the Celine Dion concert. It was a good performance, but if it wasn't for Denise I myself would never spend $80 for that. Simon went to that tall tower with roller coaster and free falls and other rides himself while we watch that concert at Caesars Palace, and he played all those rides.

Monday started off with some more Game Works gaming. Rnadom walks happened during the day time again. As well as random gamblings. Dinner was at Wynn's buffet which again costed me a fortune for the 4th time ($35), but this one was pretty worth it too, only that I wasn't too hungry at dinner time so I couldn't even eat as much as Bellagio from yesterday. But I would say the food at Wynn was better. The gambling of the day went like this. In the afternoon I won my $100 pretty quick. I then pretty much stopped and just walked around, got drinks, watched Eric play, and so on. But by around dinner time I had 10~15 more minutes to wait which made me decide on playing a bit more, which was a mistake. Promptly lost $75 in no time in that 10 minutes, and then I stopped. After dinner and all the walking and some rest back in the hotel room (we stayed at MGM Grand by the way, I guess I never mentioned that... so yeah, walking back from Wynn was a killer. But we got to see Bellagio fountain dances at least, as well as the Mirage volcano explosion.), here started the gambling again. After losing $40 in Roulette in literally 2 minutes ($20 each round, I probably bet on like 15 numbers at least each round but didn't get any in either round), I played some Casino War and made my $40 back. (I started playing War with another $40, and by the time I got $80 I quitted, dealer said "You doubled up your money. That's the way to go.") Mind you, I was literally out of cash before I played War, $40 was all I had. Getting more money from ATMs was feasible but I didn't want to -- transaction charges and all that. So after I got back my $80 cash it was serious Blackjack time. Went through ups and downs and by the time I got to $205 (which was +$125 since I started with $80) I decided it was about time to stop. I originally did want to make my trip money back before I stop, but I didn't expect to spend so much in the trip; and I had a feeling I was going to lose hard if I keep on playing. So there we go, $125 + $25 from the afternoon -- up by $150 by the end of the trip.

No, not really. Tuesday was mostly spent in the car. Drove back to LA from Vegas (have to drop off Simon and Mandy there) and it was near dinner time. We had some pretty awesome Korean/Japanese BBQ and Chinese Hotpot mix style restaurant which got me pretty damn full (and it was great food) even though it costed me the 5th fortune ($20). So since lunches and dinners together from all 5 days costed me just about $150, I basically spent all my winnings on my food for the trip. I guess only having to pay the hotel rooms cost, gas cost and concert ticket is not too bad, seeing as my days off work is paid hours.

Got back to Davis real late at 2:30 or so. Had some pretty serious and deep talks with Eric and Denise (separately... since they were responsible for the driving and I was responsible for the talking to keep them awake) on the ride back.. pretty good times actually.

However, not being able to spend time at Vegas with a special someone simply isn't as much fun.

Thursday,Sep 8 2005, 07:26:05 AMOregon Trip

Update! 9/12: Pictures Me, Thaya, Ben - Folsom group Me, Thaya, Ben - Folsom group not ready because Amy caught us by surprise - the girl on Ben's side is Quyen (i think that's how to spell) from Oregon (there are more Folsom guys, like my group, but they already left by the time this pic was taken) A whole bunch of ppl - Santa Clara group - let's see if i can name everyone.. Cheralin, Ranjeet, some presenter, David Lerner, Kevin, Ted, someone, Aurora, Amy, John, David, Winnie My new friends - Cheralin, Amy, Thaya, Me, Kevin Big group pic without me - because this was the end of the program and my group had to go early for the airport since we're the only ones taking the early shuttle back to california umm, from the left it's David, Jeffrey, the girl in blue is Elaine, guy sitting in the middle is Donny, umm.. that's about it Amy and Cheralin - obviously i'm not in this one too, but yeah, its the same airplane that i took, that's what it looks like. the box that Cheralin is carrying is a box of 6 bottles of Oregon beer (Hammerhead) that Thaya kindly "sold" to the Santa Clara guys

---

Even though this really is a "business trip" (kind of, or a training trip, it's for work anyway), I figure I should probably write about it too, since I have a laptop to play around with at night and there's internet at the hotel anyway; besides it's turning out to be a much better trip than I anticipated. Tuesday 9/6/2005 So Tuesday it was half a day of work. My team partner Dan and I left our cubes at 2:40 or so, to get on the bus to Mather Field Airport from Intel Folsom site. Russ joined us soonafter. We took the Intel Shuttle to San Jose, at which we transfer to another shuttle to Hillsboro, Oregon. I did work at the San Jose Jet Center during the hour wait too... I'm pretty hardcore =/ I think I like my job now, heheh... The Intel Shuttles are pretty cool. They are basically small airplanes that hold 40 passengers or so. The whole plane is pretty small and the corridor is narrow. There are 3 seats per row only. And it's not like a regular airplane where you don't feel anything when you accelerate up or land. It felt like a rollercoaster when it accelerated and started flying. Maybe not as serious, but you get the idea. We arrived at Hillsboro Airport around 8pm or so. (3:45 -> 4:20 got to SJC, then stayed at SJC for an hour+, then 6:15 -> 7:50 or so to Hillsboro in Oregon). Me and Dan and Russ went to Cornelius Pass Road for dinner. I finally figured out that place's name today. I thought it was some French words it turns out I just couldn't pronounce Cornelius right without seeing the word. [add] So we got back to the hotel around 10, and then I just chilled in the room pretty much... showered, turned up the laptop and got online, chatted with people, and around 12 I slept... might write more about this later, since I'm somewhat drunk now, fast forward into today... Wednesday 9/7/2005 What a packed day! Not yet, tomorrow has more stuff planned, but today was pretty packed too. Got up around 7, got to the Intel Hillsboro campus around 8:15. (for those not familiar with the area like me, Hillsboro is a smaller city next to Portland, which is the major city in Oregon? I think) So we checked in and stuff, went through the registration thing. Then it was basically college-style lecture for almost 9 hours straight with break times and lunch time in between. That's what training really is. After that! We went to Old Spaghetti Factory with the rest of the PDE (Product Development Engineer) New Hires Camp folks. There are people from Intel sites from all over. A lot from Santa Clara... some from Massachussetts... and stuff. A couple from Costa Rica even I think. And there were some cute girls! How come I don't see cute girls in Folsom site? =( Turns out the cute girls were all from Santa Clara. After that, a few of us (Me and Thaya and Ben, plus the new friends, namely the cute girls from Santa Clara and a few others) went to Portland to drive around and we ended up at this bookstore called Powell's City of Books or whatever. They say it's the biggest bookstore in the west coast, actually west of Mississippi... which is a pretty damn big region. [add] We then walked around the streets (this was around 10 by now) and since most shops are closed, we actually asked some locals there where the good places to go are. We were pointed to some bars and stuff but never really went. Thaya and I basically turned extra-natural-high in the car ride (I guess Ben was too, crazy driving) and started singing and dancing inside the car to the radio party music.. We were going to go clubbing or go to the bars afterward, but the other guys (new friends) said it was getting late (it was 10) and we were supposed to get back to Intel at 8 tomorrow. So they were like let's go back to the hotel (in Hillsboro) and we could play games or sleep for those who wants to sleep. Turns out after we got back they all wanted to sleep, so Thaya was kind of pissed because he and I were already out to buy alcohol. I said to Thaya that we were the only ones that wanted to hang out or party because we were from Bay Area and we grew up there since high school -- so the "party any time any day" thing was only in us, not in them. They moved to Santa Clara to work only recently. But I really think Thaya was pissed really because the cute girl he wanted to chase (which I totally see.. I know him too well now) didn't want to party. That was probably like the sole reason. :D [add] So after that we got some Zima XXX from Safeway anyway and just kinda drank. Which is why I was pretty drunk.. So tomorrow after the full day training again, we plan on going to the waterfall (don't ask me where that is or what it's called, I don't even know, and I'm already too drunk to think of anything), and then go shopping in Portland downtown, and then perhaps hit the bars and stuff. Or we could play Mafia or something in our hotel, which we originally were going to today. I gotta say the new friends are all pretty cool people. Fun trip so far! I actually kind of want to work in Intel Santa Clara now just because of all the cute girls that are from there. I haven't seen anyone even CLOSE in Folsom. How sad =( Thursday 9/8/2005 It turns out Thursday wasn't actually as fun as Wednesday, in my opinion at least. The training was suppoesd to be a little lighter. I think it was about the same. Same 8~9 hours of lectures to sit through. There's some useful stuff to pick up here and there. In general it was okay. Actually met some more people today. The downside of the day was we didn't go to any of the places we planned to go for the day. We ended up not going to the waterfalls, not even to Portland to shop, nor any bars or clubs either. We were going to skip the official dinner with the other people at this training to go to all those places... but our new friends were all, "Our managers told us to go to this..." since there was some guy who was giving some talk DURING the dinner (so it was really a 10 hour training). [add] I think this was pretty funny because my manager basically doesn't really even know any of the details of what happens in the camp (even though he was the one who sent us here) (I got on messenger to try to ask my manager what has been going on at work at Folsom and such, and all he asked me was "You have fun in Oregon?" "How about Dan and Russ?" "Is it raining there?" -_-); and Thaya said if his manager came with him, his manager would be the one asking everybody to go out and drink (Thaya's manager asked him to bring back these Oregon local-brewed special beer for him!!). I guess one cool thing about working in Folsom is that our managers are all so laid-back (don't get the wrong idea though -- they do work us pretty damn hard normally) and not uptight like the Santa Clara ones.. So it left only Ben, Thaya and me who wanted to go to the falls.... so we ended up going to the dinner with the others. (I really wanted to go shopping too =( ) It did turn out though, dinner was the best part of the day. Thaya was saying how good the steak was, and how good the whole dinner was... but it's really because of those girls. =P We were originally sitting somewhere near the front, and the cute girls came in later on and sat in the back where there is 1 row of seats that are couches (the entire room has all just chairs). When he saw them he just went, "Ooh there's couches, let's go sit at the couches!" and brought me and Ben there. There is .no. .way. he changed seats for the couch since it isn't even that comfortable -- it was SO only because of the 2 cute girls sitting there and he wanted to sit next to them. But I didn't bust him anyway. =P I somewhat met a lot more people today actually, including both guys and girls. I managed to meet all the cute girls in this training (who were all from Santa Clara) thanks to Thaya and his pimping skills (I wouldn't even have talked to any 1 of them if it wasn't for him, well maybe a couple but wouldn't have talked with them so much too). I think he's going to start to hang out with those people on weekends now since he goes back home in San Jose on weekends anyway, but that's none of my business... =) Since we talked and talked (we had a nice group going on at dinner.... it was me, Thaya, Ben, 3 cute girls from Santa Clara, and 2 fobby guys from Santa Clara too -- they are all the same group. I kind of felt bad about Dan and Russ since I'm really in a group with them but I ditched them for both nights -- but hey, they wanted to go back to the hotel early, I didn't purposefully ditch them. Or should I say it's just Thaya and Ben who particularly liked to party and socialize)... we left dinner at like 10 or so I believe. We went back to Thaya's room in Townesplace and played Mafia. A whooooole bunch of people came. A disappointment was that only 1 of the cute girls showed up. All in all, I guess it was a good day too, but yesterday was way better.. The one thing I've actually kind of missed was the relaxing hours in the hotel room like on Tuesday -- just surfing online and chatting with people back home, watch TV for a bit, listen to music, and so on.... really nothing that I can't do back home anyway, but it just feels different in a hotel room. Tomorrow will be the last day. I actually regret a lot about booking my flight for 4:00 now... My training ends at 3:00, which means I'll pretty much have to go straight to the airport afterward. That means I won't have time to hang out with the new friends anymore or even just with Thaya and Ben (they take the commercial flight which is later in the evening) to other places in Portland and stuff. Damn! I'll have to admit that, I think a big part of why the trip became so much more fun was because of the new friends. I don't know of Oregon, or Portland and Hillsboro, itself would be as much fun if I didn't meet these people... =) Friday 9/9/2005 I am writing this on the airplane right now, on the flight back to San Jose from Hillsboro, Oregon. I somewhat miss Oregon actually, the trip wasn't long enough.. I didn't get my chance to go shopping, which was one big minus. I also felt kind of missed out on some last minute activites, as Thaya and Ben are taking the commercial flight and that's around 6pm or so. They still get a few more hours to go shopping and other things, as well as most of my other new friends. It seems like I'm the only one taking the early shuttle back. But I also somewhat miss home right about today, so I guess it's about the right time to go back. So the day started out with last minute packing up and checking out from the hotel. Larkspur Landing was a really nice place, I liked it. I think I would choose it anyway even after I've seen Townesplace. The only thing making me want to stay at Townesplace was that Thaya and Ben and a lot of the other new friends are staying there. But I think I like Larkspur more overall. So after that it's basically a day of training again. I'll have to skip writing that part again since it's Intel Secret or Confidential stuff again. I stayed till the end anyway, even though Russ and Dan's plan originally was to leave early, at 2 or so (it ends at 3). So I got to say bye to a few new people that I met before I left. These people made my trip! It was so much fun hanging out with them this whole trip. Shout-outs going to Thaya and Ben of course, as well as new friends Amy, Cheralin, Kevin, Jeffrey, Donny, Aurora.. and also other people that I met and talked to but didn't hang out as much with. I think I'll get to keep in touch with all these guys... I'm actually pretty surprised, seeing me -- the first day, in one of the first things the presenters said, they wanted us to meet 4 new friends and keep in touch and see how they're doing at the end of September. I can't believe I actually did that. As for my group (Dan, Russ, Jason, Jacob), I don't think they did... I think the people of my group are cool, but they aren't really on the social side like Thaya and Ben are (party animals). Which is kind of why I ditched my group/my group ditched me. But it's all good, I love working with them at the workplace anyway. I'm going to post up a couple of pictures once I get them back. Amy was the only one who brought a camera so they are all on her camera. If I remember correctly it was only like 4~5 pictures (maybe not even) but it's better than nothing -- hey, remember that this was a "business trip" not a sight seeing tour or something.

Monday,Sep 5 2005, 07:04:07 AMthe value of money

i am writing here because i'm awfully bored. i think i am tired of playing wow, i think i will unsubscribe for real this time. maybe after a while when i want to play again i'll pay again to get my account back. doesn't matter. and maybe i'll start guild wars too. i'll see. but anyway. today i am writing about something i've always been thinking about. it seems like when i was little/younger, there was always stuff that i've always wanted, but never really got to buy because my parents disallowed for various reasons (but mostly "wasting money"). now that i'm actually bringing in the income for the family and should be able to buy whatever i want, i don't really see anything i really want to buy anymore. back then there would be things like (just as an example) video game consoles that i really want to get, and would be the happiest boy in the world if i can get one. but i would end up either not being able to (for reasons stated above) or have to wait a long time before i could. now that i have the money, i don't really want those things anymore. i think it's kind of ironic. i don't know if it happens to everybody else or just me. when i was little, there would be so many things that i want, but never really have the ability to get many of them. i would've been really happy at those times if i were able to buy those things. i would work really hard to make my way to getting those. for example, i worked hard on agum.com the first few months to make those $200 to buy that PS1 back in like 1998 or whatever. i don't know if you're understanding what i'm saying at all. now i'm working, and i'm making the money, but i don't really have certain things i want to spend it on that can make me really happy. it's not like back then, when there were certain things that i just really wanted to get and i would be really happy to buy them. i think the point is that, now that i actually have the money, the point of spending the money is kind of gone -- and i now work for the sole reason that i don't have anything else to do in my life if i don't work, not because there's something i want to get. due to this philosophy, i kind of think that when kids really want something, parents should really buy them it. as an adult, you really don't feel the same kind of happiness a kid does when he can get something that he really wants. i'm buying stuff i want now -- mp3 player, new cell phone, new digital camera, maybe even a DS -- but none of this stuff gives me the same kind of happiness when i buy them as i did, for example, when i got my super nintendo and then nintendo 64 when i was little. really, the happiest time of a person's life has got to be his/her first 20 years -- there is like no arguing of it. you could say that when you are a grown-up, you save money for the bigger stuff. a house. a car. and more stuff like that. it might be just me but i don't think, even getting the car of my dream, would make me as happy now as i did when i got a video game console when i was 12. does it make saving up money from work now meaningless? i don't know whether i can conclude that, but i definitely can say that i am spending bigger money now for less happiness -- comparing to before when i could spend little money for big happiness. (although, back in that age, that "little money" was relatively big for me)