engagement party

I went to the engagement party of my friend this afternoon.  We have known the couple for years since we were in SFU.  They bought a new spacious townhouse in Port Coquitlam.  Very quite and convenient neighborhood.  It's just a bit too far from where we work.

A lot of people were there to celebrate the new engaged couple for their new life and new home. A new start and life are waiting for them.  Bless them!

children education thought

I thought about the education of children when I was driving home tonight.
It is partially stimulated by the "three word poem" I was reciting recently.

The education of children can be divided into three aspects, merit, behavior, personality.  For each category, I listed the top three points I think that are important. They are,

* people
  * respect others and self-esteem


  * love
  * faithful
* behavior
  * prioritize

  * persistent
  * planning

* personality
  * optimistic
  * curious


There are other merit or personality should be nurtured, admittedly.  I only list the one that I think should be the most important part here, as you have to prioritize the points at first.

iPad

Apple announced the iPad flat screen computer today.

It's an ARM based mobile computer.  That's why the stock price of ARM holding soar today after the announcement.  It reaches 9.91 in today's high and that's 52 week's high point as well.

It's really good news for mobile computing.  Apple's iPad will lead the new mobile computing platform and will eventually replace the traditional desktop/laptop computing environment.
Users won't care about the underlying hardware and the OS running, so long as they have enough app and common applications like web browser, email client, photo viewer, and so on.

The new mobile computing era is coming!

Bought a car

I bought a 04 Acura TSX from a friend.  Acura TSX is the entry level luxury car.  You feel better when you drive a luxury car, as the interior is much better with premium package. Once you drove a luxury car, it would be hard to return to normal car again.

The TSX was quite a popular car.  It is among the most popular cars sold in Canada 04-06. However, the trunk is smaller than my Jetta, which is some how a weak point to me.

I am selling my Jetta now.

浙江大学温哥华校友会春节联谊活动通知

浙江大学温哥华校友会春节联谊活动通知

浙江大学温哥华校友会定于2010年2月6日
在列治文Richmond的Richmond Rod & Gun Club (http://rrgc.homestead.com/)
举行欢度春节团拜联谊活动。
欢迎大温地区的浙大（含原杭大，浙医大，浙农大）

新老校友携带家属及亲朋好友参加。

活动细节如下：


时间：2010年2月6日（星期六）中午11点至下午3点。

地点：7891 Cambie Road, Richmond, BC V6X 1J7
(沿Cambie Road过3号路朝西 即朝菲沙河方向行驶70米即到目的地)

方式：Potluck, 由校友会理事会出资租用活动场地及提供水果饮料酒水点心。
请与会的校友各自携带食物（参考满足自己家庭成员吃为量），和其他校友一起分享。

内容：校友团拜，有奖知识竞赛，文艺表演，抽奖等。

报名：778-6885929 （黄晓峰）；604-771-9618 （程建安）
电子邮件：chhao4u@yahoo.com （陈浩）
请报名时候说明参加人数（成人及儿童）

没有车的校友报名时请说明，我们可派人在列治文天车站接送校友去聚会场所。

愿意在活动中发言或参与表演、愿意做义工的校友请与黄程两位校友联系。


辞牛迎虎、春节快乐

浙江大学温哥华校友会理事会
2010年1月20日

investment in this decade

It's Jan. 2010.  The first month of the second decades in 21st century. It's a good time to consider the investment strategy for this decade.

For the last decades, resources, gold, commodity are the stars of the investment.  So, what will be next star sectors?

One article I recently read gives a strategy of investing in the ignored sectors.  Just like the resource and gold was ignored at the beginning of the past decades. It sounds like reasonable.

Let's guess what will be the next growing sectors in this decade.

* Health Care
  This sector basically had not much grow in the past decade. It may be a good sector.  I rate it as 4 out of 5. (XLV)

* Telecommunication
  3G/4G will change the lifestyle of everyone,  just like the Internet has changed our life already. (VZ)

* Railroad
  The most efficient transportation method.  It's green and efficient. (IYT)

* Energy midstream
  With China and India crave for energy, the transportation midstream, will gain a lot of businesses. (DUK)

* Natural Gas
  Natural Gas is already bottomed.  No way it will drop any further. (GAS.TO)

board game is gaining monument in China now

Heard from my friend that board game is gaining a huge monument since last year.  Check out this website http://173zy.com and you may have some idea this kind of game is hot and fresh in China now.  The website is trying to sell online version of the games.

Well, my business idea is finally making sense now.  My plan was to sell board game in China by Chinesize the popular and succeeded board game in western country. We can borrow game idea from the existing games and incorporate into the Chinese culture.  That sure will make a big hit.

Right now, maybe it is a good time to enter this market and start the business, as the early market has been opened and players were educated already.  So, it is relatively easy to sell the concept of board game to players now.

Let's make a business plan on this.

point roberts pickup

I went to Point Roberts to pick up the books I ordered from Amazon.  The massey tunnel was quite crowded south bound this noon. The border is quite empty, I passed the border without any question using my Nexus card. The returning trip is quite easy as well.  After I dropped my traveler's claim card, no questions asked anyway.

I went to Aberdeen center to pick up the mails for Linda this afternoon.  A lot of people in the mall actually.  It's hard to find a parking stall.  The design of the parking lot is quite stupid, making it hard to get to the mall.  I don't understand why the parking lot is not designed to be flat.  Maybe they want to squeeze more car into the lot.  That sucks.

google and baidu

The announcement of Google is ready to quit China's market is a huge bomb to the Internet stock recently, especially Baidu, the No.1 search engine company in China, whose stock price surged more than 30% in two days.

I bought some Feb. put option of Baidu this morning, hoping a correction will bring some money to me.  Let's wait and see.  But I can hold those put for too long, no more than 2 weeks as the time value is decreasing fast for the near term options. I should close this position by the end of Jan.

I bought some Jan. call option of Google this morning and sold it in the afternoon.  I bought it in 2.8 and sold it at 5.  Such a quick move, anyway, it's like a gambling, just for fun.

exciting business idea: haoge food

I have just come up with an exciting business idea this early morning when I was lying on the bed.  It's an idea of fast food franchise, called "Haoge food" or whatever.

The concept is to create a Chinese fast food franchise similar to subway, with Chinese style sandwich.  The selling point of this fast food is healthy fast food.

The Chinese style sandwich is a descendant  of Xi'an RouJieMo plus Chengdu RouGuoKuei.

The bun is based on GuoKui, or ShaoBing. I'd like to use whole wheat to make the bun.

The ingredient:

* Meat
   * Chicken
   * Spicy Chicken
   * Pork
   * Spicy Pork
   * Beef
   * Spicy Beef
   * Sausauge
   * Spicy Sausauge
   * Meat Ball

* Vegetable
   * ZhaCai
   * PaoCai
   * XiangCai
   * Green Onion
   * Onion
   * ShengCai
   * Green Pepper
   * Cucumber
   * Tomato


* Extra
   * Fried Egg
   * Cheese
   * Chili Pepper Powder

* Sauce
   * Ketchup
   * Mayo
   * HaoYou

* Drink
   * Green Bean Soup
   * Red Bean Soup
   * YiMi Soup
   * Soy Milk
   * Milk

self employee vs employee

I was discussing the self-employee vs. employee with George and Ray today.

The result can be summarized like the following simple points.

Given the relative higher salary working as a software engineer, if  you are doing other self-employee business, like vehicle importing, reality agents, ...

1) around 40~50% chance that you will make less money than your current salary + bonus + benefit

2) maybe 20~30% chance that you can get even with your current employed job, in terms of salary + bonus + benefit

3) maybe 10~20% chance that you may made more than you currently have

So, it is quite a dilemma to do your own business vs. being employed by a big company.

There are other pros and cons in this discussion. I'll come back later on this topic the other days.

A better approach would be to do part-time business while keep your current job.  A software development business would be a good starting point.  We had discussed about the iPhone application development.  That may be a good business opportunity.

brainpal, the future computer that I dream

I want a brainpal, the future computer implanted into your body.  It doesn't have to be powerful. I just need it to access the Internet and multimedia content.  It needs wireless connection and the battery should last for a very long time, say charge once a year.

Why do I want such a computer?  Because I want to access/retrieve information whenever I want, when I was running, or in the bathroom, or driving.  I basically need an accompany 24x7.

I believe the current technology is not too far from creating such a small embedded system into human body.
However, the user interface is still the biggest problem. How do you give command to the brainpal, and how do you receive information and media returned by the brainpal.  I believe it may take another 20 years before it can be created in lab.  Maybe another 10 years before it can be commercialized.  I just hope that I can get one before I can't use a computer.

Note, the name "brainpal" is coming from the award winning sci-fi novel "Old man's war", written by John Scalzi.  The novel is one of my favorites.

about medicine

I've quickly read a book written by a Japanese doctor about the medicine that may not be good to your health. In this book, one sentence I am impressed most.  It is actually a Chinese idiom I knew of for a long time - "Every medicine is 30% poisonous."  That's definitely true.  The medicine is created to cure some diseases. However,  many diseases are not a simply reaction or equation, like 1+1=2, they are far more complicated process than human can comprehend for now.  Many can be caused by various factors, like gene, life style, virus, bacteria, and so on.  I can't believe a "simple" medicine can take into account of all the factors and cure the disease easily.  That's why no medicine are 100% effective.  They can only somehow relieve the symptom. Patients still have to rely on their own body to cure eventually.

Anyway, I read this book and it warns me about the medicine.  What I learned immediately is that there is no need to take medicine for allergy unless the allergy are really affect your life too much.  That's actually what I did in the past several years, relying on my own body to get used to the symptom of allergy and I am getting better in handling the allergy year by year.

ultramarathon

I read a race report today about a 50 miles ultramarathon race, written by a guy in mitbbs running board.  It's an inspiring report.  I love one sentence at the end of his report.  "Pleasure is closer to pain sometimes.".  This is the first race report of ultramarathon in that board. This guy trained very hard and he made this great race. Running is really addictive, especially with all the pain.  The rewarding experience is coming from your conquering of the pain in the race. Human sometimes are absurd.  Seeking pleasure out of pain.

Anyway, I really hope that I could run an ultramarathon sometimes.  I plan to do the H2H 100km ultra.  That sound like not an impossible mission, if I can get to 70mpw training.  It's a huge commitment though.  Maybe I won't have time to train in recent years.  I won't set a fixed time for this goal, but it is definitely on my calendar.

dumpling and wanton

We made dumpling and wanton tonight.

The dumpling is stuffed with chives and ground pork. The wanton is stuffed with JieChoy and carrot and ground pork.

The dumpling is soft and smooth, while the wanton is crispy and some bitter with sweet.

They are delicious.  A quick and delicious dinner.

Investment in 2010

I accidentally found a new tax shelter in Canada. "Flow-through Share".

Simply put, you put a certain amount of money in flow-through share, usually through a fund, starting from $5000.  100% amount of that money, will be deducted from your income.  The flow-through share is usually issued by resource companies listed in stock exchange. The fund acquired the shares with some premium.  You can sell the share usually after 2 years.  When you sell the share, your income, for example, $5500, will be your capital gain and you are subject to tax on your capital gain.

It defers your tax by two years and reduces it for 50%, as the capital gain is taxed on 50% only.  Your risk is the price of the flow-through share dropped.  Given the current market, I strongly believe the resource industry will keep growing in the next two years.  Even if the share price doesn't change, you saved tax on half of your investment.

I'm definitely interested in the flow-through shares.  It is said the CMP LP is the best flow-through share investment tool.

Car repair

I felt unhappy these couple of days as my car was sent to workshop for repair.  The car didn't start on Tuesday morning.  It had this start problem intermittently since last year but I didn't pay enough attention to it until it is totally down.  I called BCAA and towed it to Firestone.

What really makes me unhappy is that I have recently invested around 2k in repairing this car and it is still broken.  I was hoping that it can at least run another year before I finally sell it.  Unfortunately, it is still in the repair shop and not ready to go yet.

I had planed to replace this car in the summer time, when new car was on sale and this one still work.  However, various reasons delayed my decision and I decided to keep use it for another year.  I just hope it can really survive this time.  Otherwise, I may lose 3-5k on it after my investment of replacing tire, changing brakes, changing time belt ...

I hate it and I really should just take bus.  I enjoy taking bus to commute as I can read and listen to music during commute.

Two New Year Parties

Just come back from the New Year's Party from Jimmy's home tonight.  Last night, we went to Phoebe's home for a New Year's party. Had no time to post about the two parties.

We had great ham/salad and chicken wings in Phoebe's home last night. We played the "Wits and Wagers" game with Stephen, Mike, and Phoebe. That's the first time we played this game with friends and they all love this funny trivia game. A Chinese version would definitely be entertaining.

We had discussed about the "Food, Inc" documentary.  Seemed this documentary may have affected a lot of people's eating habit with meat.

I had studied the "Canadian Health Guide" this afternoon in Chapters, especially the nutrition chapter.  It explains the fat, protein, sugar and their effect and food.  I am clear now about the saturated and non-saturated fat.  The trans-fat is rare in nature food.  It is a product of hydrogenate with non-saturated fat to make it more flow and stable in processed food, such as deep fried food. Saturated fat is not good as it will increase the level of cholesterol, especially the LDL, which is "bad" for heart and artery. Monononsaturated fat will lower the LDL, so it is good.  Olive oil, sesame oil, and peanut oil contains more monononsaturated fat.  Olive oil is especially good as it contains antioxidant, which makes it the most healthy fat. Polynonsaturated fat as also good, why? (Don't remember)

We went to Jimmy's place for another party with alumni. We had discussed a lot of topics covering Economy, China, Stock, Business.  It's fun to have a smaller alumni gathering so that we can have more intensive discussion.  They have prepared a lot of food.  I had eaten too much. :-(