yardwork, a lot of

The past weekend was a super busy and rewarding weekend for me.

I did a lot of yard work, a lot, really. It is the first milestone of my backyard renovation project.

Every big project starts with a small step.

I started to trim a few branches out of the trees just outside of my backyard fence, as the trees were
growing rampantly blocked a lot of sunshine and wind to my yard. You know, once you cleaned up one tree,
you are seduced to clean up another, and you are addicted to the clean up work step by step.

I trimmed a lot of branches and dead twigs from the trees outside. I thought that may be all I could do
this summer.  However, the coming of my cousin brings a new chapter to this project. He is avid in garden work
back in China. My unruly backyard gives him an opportunity to apply his enthusiasm and energy into the
work he loved. He kept cleaning up more and more branches, outside, and gradually inside of my yard.

We have a huge WALL of pine trees on the west side of the yard, like a little forest.
It looks okay from outside, however, it is too thick and dirty within, with a bunch of
dead twigs and garbage on the ground.
To me, it's like a potential risk and maybe a nightmare to my baby girl.
The idea to overhaul the 'forest' haunted me for a while, but I thought it may be a project for me next year.

After my cousin cleaned up other trees, he eventually was allured to this 'forest' with ambition to get
it done this year.  As he is at home everyday, it's actually not infeasible, given his ambition and experience.

He cut down all the big branches lower than 2 meters and gathered all the dead twigs. Our green waste
put on the curb was growing every week. :-) Last week, he finally prune almost all the lower branches in
the forest, with just a huge amount of leftover on the grass to clean up.

En, the forest does look much better and the yard is getting a bit more sunshine. One lovely point is that
we can feel breeze brush through the backyard now. The yard is getting alive. We also discovered the broken
fence hidden inside the forest and it is time to replace them as well.

Given the gigantic amount of branches/twigs to remove, I thought that it's better to get rid of them sooner than
later.  So, I booked a 4'x7' utility trailer from U-Haul in the last Sunday, planning to tow all the green waste
to Surrey Waste Transfer Station in the northern Surrey.  It's a first experience to me to attach a trailer to my
car. Fortunately, there is a hitch installed on the back already.

My brother-in-law, my cousin and me, worked together to cut, prune, and bundle all the branches, the broken fence into
smaller bunches on Saturday, to get them ready for Sunday. Then, on the Sunday, we pile the bunch in the trailer and
towed it to the transfer station. TWICE. We are done and it costs me $33 dollars to remove all the green waste. ($59 per tonne)

I was discussing with my cousin about the next step once we removed all the waste. I thought it might be good to put some
gravel, or small pebble underneath the trees. The utility trailer helped in this case. After I removed the waste, I bought
a scoop load of 'pea gravel' from the Art's Nursery, which is very close to the transfer station. The whole load costs me
only $31 dollar inc. taxes. It's dirty cheap. But you can't get them unless you have a pick-up or trailer to transport them.

I need to buy a wheelbarrows tonight and spread the gravel onto the forest.

My to-do list or the plan for my backyard.

* A green house on my side yard, built with aluminum alloy or wood
* A small arch built with the tree branches I cut
:x
* Flowers on the north side of the grass
* A small fountain, tentatively

I also want to buy some red lava rock to cover and decorate the yard.

A lot of yard work has been done and a lot more are still waiting ...

stress

Read an article today discussing the cure of stress by science.
It starts with a story about a professor in Stanford to inspect the stress of baboon in Africa. The professor found that the ranking of baboon in their highly hierarchical society can great affect the level of stress. The result is also confirmed by other studies of rat, civil servants in England. Some interesting findings say that high demanding work like high level executive may not be stressful, as they have more control over their job. However, low level job like security and typist are more stressful as their can't get any satisfaction from their jobs. The punch line is the higher your position is, the longer you live. :-)  SO, it's a perfect reason why everyone want to get promotion!

It also unravels the chemical factor of stress. Some chemical, (can't recall the name) generated by the amygdala in brain may increase when people are in stress. When people are in stressful state, other functionality of the body may be suppressed as all the energy may be used to handle the stress, as the natural consequence of evolution.

When people are in chronic stressful state, their body tend to be venerable as the immune system, neuron system may not be functioning in good status. Stress can result in heart stroke, diabetes, and other cardiovascular diseases.

The professor in Stanford is actually trying to develop a vaccine like drug to "cure" stress.  I highly doubt the usefulness of the drug.  Even it is useful, I thought it may not be a good thing as stress can also be good to people. People may improve himself and learn to handle stress, which may benefit them eventually. Stress can be a two blades sword.

Anyway, it also presents some methods to handle stress, like make friends, little of drink, face the fear, meditation, exercise when you like to, ...

Read another article about the death of phone call.  It said the people are now making less phone call, instead using text message, or twitter, or IM more.  The author usually won't take unscheduled call except from his mom. LOL. The punch line is, we are making less phone call but talk more.

After written this post, I realized that it is very true the ancient Chinese adage, "opening a book will always benefit you". Yes, I learned a lot from reading.

iphone4

I plan to upgrade to my cell phone to iPhone 4, but it is hard to get one right now in Canada. The hungry marketing of Apple is so successful.  Everyone has to be patient to get the latest model.

I come up with a Haiku for iPhone 4 on the bus this morning.

----------------------
slim sharp stylish
retina display has more
hold with fingers

running, immigration

I've done quite a lot of reading recently during commute.

I was reading Runner's World, Business Week, and The Economist.

One article on the August's Runner's World about the life of two running coaches with the background of new illegal immigrant law in Arizona did touch me. The life of the illegal immigrates in the states are really miserable.  The poor kids from Mexico were brought to the states by their parents.  They had been living un underworld life without legal identity for 20 years.  They learned English and went to school, got paid in low wage doing labour works.  Only when they can get married with a US citizen can they be sponsonored a US citizenship. The two coaches had similar background and were runners in school.  Running made them strong. The story is weaven with running of the high school students and the immigration issue.  Sigh, the US legal identity is a nightmare to every immigrant.  Even people with higher education in the US had to fight for their "green card", being "slaved" by US companies for many years. I saw and heard a lot of similar stories about Chinese students struggling to get the "green card".

It's a big topic about the immigration in the US.  We are lucky to have obtained the immigrate status in Canada without too much suffers. Canada is a lot more friendly to immigrates then the States.

Tang Jun - the celebrity liar

The story about Tang Jun's fake education has been populated on the Internet for a while.  I had no interests in this liar, and no need to add some fuel to this fire. However, when I was reading "The Economist" yesterday.  This cheater's name was mentioned in one article about the corruption in education and publish in China.  He was depicted as a celebrity executive got less swanky degree from California. It actually beautifies the cheater.

He is really a celebrity now with his name referred in "The Economist". The liar.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

I had read some posts recently about the 7 habits again. So, maybe its a good time to refresh my memory about the 7 good habits.

1. be proactive
2. begin with the end in mind
3. put first thing first
4. think win/win
5. seek to understand, then be understood
6. synergize
7. sharpen the saw

The first 3 is to get yourself independent and the next 3 is to get interdependent.  The last one is the way to keep improving yourself along the road.

My summary of good habits includes:

1. proactive
2. planning and persistency
3. prioritize properly
4. keep learning