Nightsongs, and Lovely Blog Award!

Project:  Nightsongs
Pattern:  Nightsongs by MaweLucky/Jane Araujo, Ravelry free download
Yarn:  Ellen's Half Pint Farm 100% Merino Sock 
Yardage:  500 yards
Needles: Size 7
Cast on: June 20 2012
Notes: You can't tell from the picture, but this is a beautiful lace pattern. It starts from the center of the back and knits down. Once I understood the direction and what lines on the chart to repeat, it became very easy. I'm on the edging now (the shorter sides of the triangle), and I really hope that tiny ball of yarn left will be enough for the rest of the 12 rows. 


Our fellow Fiber Arts Friday blogger Kathryn, who blogs at Kathryn's Brain, generously gave me a Lovely Blog Award. Thanks Kathryn! Kathryn is an engineer, and besides her day job, she also tends to her Alpacamundo farm, raises alpaca dogs, and supports her husband in his pursuit of professional racing. Oh of course, she spins, knits, blogs, and collects exotic fibers. I don't know how she does it all.

In order to accept the award, there are a number of things one must do:

1 – Show your Thanks – Thank the person who awarded the honor and link back to them

2 - Share seven things about yourself.

3 – Nominate up to 15 Blogs that you admire.

4 – Contact the bloggers by leaving comments with them about their awards

Over the years I have written "a few interesting things" a few times, so it might be hard to come up with something new and interesting. But here are the earlier versions: 

Five things

Six strange things

Seven things

Seven facts

4 things

Bagged by Frisky

Six quirky things

Seven musical facts

Twenty five things(!)

Three things

A to Z. 

Wow, that's a lot to say about myself! Would anyone actually read them? Now let me see if I can still find seven more to say:

1. My first yoga class was prenatal yoga. We did a lot of child's pose, and kegel. I generally dozed off during shavasana. The class was held in a classroom at Wilson Preschool which Henry and I attended on and off during his preschool years. I remember laying on the floor and staring at the child proof cabinet locks, very puzzled. 

2. I have been alcohol free, or very close to it, for over three years and don't miss a thing.

3. I just discovered how to download and listen to podcast on my phone recently. One very good episode is Americans in China from The American Life. Check it out.

4. I talk to Chinese people about work in English, but do numbers in my head in Chinese.

5. The only game I play, on my computer and on the phone, is solitaire. When my mom calls, I turn on solitaire.

6. In fifth grade I wanted to be a flight attendant when I grew up. Some airline people went to my brother's school to recruit the high school girls, and it sounded so glamorous and spectacular.

7. I have a brown thumb. Once I killed a cactus. 

Blogs I nominate:

1. Otter World -- this blog is near and dear to my heart, because it belongs to Henry. I started it when Henry was in second grade, as a place to park all the cute things he wrote. Over the years he's taken it over and now maintains it himself. We have a few things lined up for the summer and he will be blogging on regular basis.

2. Cat's Tale -- my friend Cathy who I met on Ravelry because of my writing about being Chinese, is Chinese herself but living in Australia by way of Great Britain. We have a lot in common (except for where we live!) and we really look forward to the day when we finally meet in person.

3. Towers Take a Trip -- this is one of the best expat blogs, and it's written by my friend Helen. Helen, with her husband and two boys, followed her husband's job from bay area to India. Her writing is very entertaining and informative. I hope her blog will be featured on one of the major networking sites, because it deserves more attention.

4. Wool love-functional fiber art -- Heather is an exceptional fiber artist. She presents beautiful felt work with comprehensive photos and instructions every week (actually more than once a week). Most of the time I look at them over and over, and say "this is like magic!"

5. Pumpkin Spins -- I don't have many young knitting friends, so I'm pleasantly surprised to see Pumpkin's posting week after week on her knitting, spinning, dyeing and other stories. Her site is well designed, pictures are always nice and clear, and I really enjoy the weekly visits.


Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment! 

I Got My Very Own Mannequin!

I have been looking for a mannequin for a long time. I need something that I can hang my knitting on, play with lights and draping, and generally treat it like a doll that I never had. So when my friend Hollis, who used to own Full Thread Ahead in Los Altos, posted on Facebook about her upcoming destash of store supplies, I immediately jumped on it.

Here we are, properly dressed and accessorized. Now I don't have to hand the camera to one of the guys and hope he'd be in the mood to follow directions.

wrap her any way I like

See the purple skirt in the first two pictures? I used to fit in it, and it's too small to button up on the mannequin. I used to be smaller than the mannequin! I don't even want to think about how my skirts fit on her now.

This post is my 499th post on this blog, so next week will be my 500th. I started the blog a little over six years ago. Over the years a lot have changed, the group of friends that started blogging with me have mostly fallen apart. But I have met many new friends through this blog, and I want to celebrate with a giveaway. I have never done a giveaway before, and I'm contemplating what's the best way to do it. If you have ideas, suggestions, warnings, do tell me.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment! 

Flower Drum Song

Couple of weeks ago Bill and I went to see the updated musical Flower Drum Song. The original was produced in the late 50s, by the infamous music team Rogers and Hammerstein. The story in the musical and the following movie was so racially offensive that it was buried for 40 years, until in 2002 David Henry Hwang rewrote the script and put it back on stage.

Usually I stay away from this let-me-tell-you-what-Chinese-is-about type of propaganda, because they are usually told from one person's perspective but the audience is made to believe they are the representation of every Chinese in America. It's hard to explain even to the ones closest to me, that I'm not one of the 80% Chinese population from the rural villages, that I don't know much about Chinese opera other than it's loud and boring, that my parents, my grand parents, none of my aunts and uncles had arranged marriage, that although my family went through some very tough days, I hardly consider us victims.

To think every Chinese fits in the stereotypical Chinese mold, is to believe that every American lives on McDonald's, at least 30% over weight, watch TV five hours a day and listen to rap music.

But this is a Rogers and Hammerstein musical after all, or mostly so. I went, I wept for the characters, and I still don't like the story. Rather than making you listen to me whine about others' wrong doings, I'll tell you what my kind of Chinese is really about.

There are many of us in this country, mainly the generation came to study and work in science and technology fields, starting in the late 80s. This is the class of elite and privileges. We are from good families in major cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Xi'an, Si Chuan province etc, which are far more westernized than the vast rural areas. Our parents or grand parents held positions as party officials, local government officials, university professors, scientists, physicians and surgeons. We received the best education available in a country only 3% of the population goes to college. We are here because our families believed there was a better future outside of China, and because we could socially and financially afford the risk. Many of the families took advantage of the system (bribery was the most basic), so we could be here to enjoy the American dream and not have to worry about being sent to the country for hard labor in the next cultural revolution.

So next time when you bump into a Chinese engineer, keep in mind that he might be more interested in Bach than Chinese opera.

Friday Q&A

Lynn posted these on her blog Never A Dull Moment. I'm in a rather dull moment right now, actually very tiresome, after being sick most of the week. This is an easy diversion: 1. What is your occupation right now? Finance professional at a tech company. 2. What color are your socks right now? Black 3. What are you listening to right now? Office chatters, too much of it if you ask me. 4. What was the last thing that you ate? Only green tea so far today, cause I made some poor food choices yesterday and got really sick. My poor husband had to pick me up off the floor. 5. Can you drive a stick shift? I did many years ago, not sure if I can still do it. 6. Last person you spoke to on the phone? Listened to a voicemail from the benefits people when I came in this morning. 7. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yes, she's a great knitter and parent 8. How old are you today? Older than when I got married, but younger than some of my readers. 9. What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? Figure skating 10. What is your favorite drink? Mud slide, but I really shouldn't have any alcohol or dairy 11. Have you ever dyed your hair? Yes, and it was chronicled on this blog: before and after 12. Favorite food? chocolate (there is that dairy again) 13. What is the last movie you watched? We watched ER last night. It's their last season and they brought back Mark Greene, Peter Benton, Weaver, Romano, Jerry, very touching moments. 14. Favorite day of the year? My birthday 15. How do you vent anger? Yell at my husband 16. What was your favorite toy as a child? A tiny five-inch rubber boy doll. I called him Short Fat Guy 矮胖丁. We lost the original during the many moves in my childhood, but found a replacement when I was a teen. I left it at home when I moved out, but my brother brought it to the US when he left China. I have it standing on my bookcase in the bedroom. 17. What is your favorite season? Spring, when flowers are blooming and everything comes to life. 18. Cherries or Blueberries? Cherries, fresh ones. 19. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back? Why not? I love getting email from my friends. 20. Who is the most likely to respond? Really not sure. But please do just to say hi. 21. Who is least likely to respond? Surfer from other country looking for knitting pattern 22. Living arrangements? Yarn, books, fresh fruits on the counter and in the fridge, roses in the garden, a crab in his tank, couple of little black dogs laying about the house, a child throws balls around to make me nervous, a husband in charge of them all. 23. When was the last time you cried? Last night. 24. What is on the floor of your closet? What floor? The space is covered with shoe racks and bins of yarn. Bucky gets stuck in the door if he tries to get in. 28. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers? Cheese. We owe Henry a trip to Main Street Burgers in downtown Los Gatos on Sunday. Most likely Henry and I will share an order of sliders (mini burgers). There is that dairy again. 29. Favorite dog breed? Do I need to mention the P- word? Actually I like most pug mixes and other flat faced dogs too. 30. Favorite day of the week? Thursday, cause I get to work from home. I work for Thursday all week. 31. How many states have you lived in? 1 in US. 32. Diamonds or pearls? Pearls, and jade. 33. What is your favorite flower? Roses, any color, but mostly different shades of red.

Election Day Rambling

Today I voted the second time in my not very short life. I never voted in China -- there were elections, even in my days, but if one would like to get under big brother's foot, go right ahead. I swore in as an US citizen on the day Henry turned six weeks old (passed my oral test eleven days before delivery). I voted a year later, and look at where we ended up in the last eight years. Pretty discouraging for a new citizen. Given my family background, I vowed to myself many years ago to be apolitical. I never get involved in political discussion, and have no party affiliation, even in China, where The Party decided for everyone where you are allowed to eat and sleep. I got a hard head, thick skin, and a very straight spine. There has been so much going on with this election. Sometimes I just want to take a pill, go to sleep for days and weeks, wake up on November 5th, to welcome the new president, celebrate equality, and throw a big party for Bucky's 13th birthday. I want to wake up to a peaceful world, a better place to live. But I also know that without the painful labor, we would not have the fruit to enjoy in the years coming. And I cannot ignore this:

California Proposition 8: Ban on Gay Marriage This measure would amend the state constitution to specify that only marriages between one man and one woman would be recognized as valid in the state. If passed, the measure would trump a May 2008 ruling by the California Supreme Court that legalized same-sex marriage.

As a Chinese woman, living in America, married to a White man, with a multiracial child, I'm a bit sensitive to discrimination. Should I be living in the wrong place in this country in the wrong time, my marriage would not be legal, and I would not be allowed to own property, among other things. Today I still face racial and gender bias every day so I understand how hard others have to defend themselves for being who they are. There are simple things we can do to make other fellow humans happy, acknowledging their sheer existence is one of them. It saddens me to see many Chinese faces in the "Yes on 8" parade. We are here, living on other people's land, because we enjoy the freedom that we can't find at home. Why deny the same freedom from others? Now about that child of mine, who has been questioning his parents on a regular basis about our views on various measures and candidates, because one of his classmates talks about what he hears at home. I wish the school would take a more active role in teaching kids the current affairs. Funny they know more about George Washington than George Bush, know how Lincoln died but not where Obama came from. They gossip about "Mr. Martin is gay", and no one cares to teach them that homosexual men and women are also human. Leave it to me, Henry gets to hear all my unbiased opinion.

Brain Storming with Henry

The other day Henry and I had some extra time after lunch, so we played a round of brain storm. I used to do this all the time when I was in school, mostly when I was bored with whatever subject the class was about and had to pretend busy taking notes. The rule is very simple, start with a random subject, write a phrase or sentence about it, follow with a phrase or sentence that relates to a subject in the previous line. There are no right or wrong answers, and can go on infinitely. Henry picked the subject of painters, as in artists that paint pictures, not someone paints a house. These are mostly Henry's inputs, I only wrote them down on napkins and corrected grammar occasionally. - Painters always have brushes and sometimes an art studio - An art studio should be big, covered and full of light - Sun light is the best light source - An art studio should have lots of big windows - Windows have frames - Window frames can be wood, plastic and metal - Metal makes the most sturdy window frames - Sturdy window frames don't break in an earthquake - One of the worst earthquakes was in San Francisco in 1906 - Lots of buildings were destroyed in 1906 earthquake - Buildings today are constructed to be earthquake proof - Earthquake insurance is very expensive - Nintendo DS is also very expensive - Nintendo DS is a handheld game station that you play video games on - Video games are fun but if you play too much your eyes will wear out - Staring at the sun may damage your eyes - The sun is hot - Henry's tamale (that he had for lunch) was really hot and spicy - Peppers are spicy - Pepper is a type of food - Food gives you energy - You need energy to run - Usain Bolt runs really fast - Usain Bolt made new world records in the 2008 Olympics By now we were at the bottom of the second napkin, so we decided to loop the finishing line back to the beginning. - In the Olympics opening ceremony dancers painted a huge Chinese painting

Life, Random Acts of Violence

A few months ago one of the parents at my son's school died accidentally while cleaning his gun. Weeks later another parent was robbed and murdered during a business trip in Detroit. A six year old girl's hand was brutally amputated by a jump rope while riding in a car, on the street in front of my son's school. Pippin Seales died on a crowded Santa Cruz beach, buried in a sand dune. This blog gets hits every week for Google searches on Nina Wesson, a young mother died suddenly more than two years ago, leaving three young children behind. She's missed. A dear friend of mine lost her husband of many years. Another friend's husband was diagnosed with cancer. Stock market losing 40% of its value, so does the IRAs and 401(k)'s. My company's stock tumbled an additional 25% in the past week, after a poor quarterly result. I worked late nights to contribute to the press release. My years of savings frozen in money market, thanks to some fool invested it with Lehman Brothers. The war, the election, the economy, tearing so many people apart. When does violence stop being random, and start becoming a trend? Can we stop the trend? Be well, my friends, know your safety and happiness matters to the world. We are here to stay, to live, to be with each other. Be kind to ourselves, to our friends and family, to the earth.

Man of Love

This blog gets a few hits a day from Google searches for the Good Husband's Guide. Strangers (and friends) probably all think that I was capable of writing such a thing because I know just exactly how to sculpt a man into a good husband. The fact of the matter is, I do.

In our house I'm the one to make rules and tell the boys what to do. I tell them when they are wrong, and what's good for them. I cook the food they eat, and they are not to complain. When the dogs misbehave, I make the human boys quiet the animal noise. When the human child needs help with his homework, I tell the Man it's his turn to exercise parental rights.

The fact of the matter is, I can get away with all this. Because the Man has a big heart.

This very tall man tends the smallest creatures, little dogs, and hermit crabs.

The same man that plays basketball and writes poetry.

The mountain biker that enjoys Mama Mia and Sound of Music.

The man that can't figure out how shorten the straps of his backpack, but knows his knits and purls.

The man that lives in jeans and T shirts, who bought better clothes for me than I ever did myself.

The man that watched a young woman stumble her way in a new country, lending his hands at every turn.

He is Libra and I am Gemini. His balances hold my angel and devil in place. His patience tames my tantrum. His logic diverts my impulse. He is the safety net for a wondering butterfly, the Stonehenge that keeps a hot air balloon solidly aground.

Today is the Man's birthday. I am the luckiest woman in the world.

Six Quirky Boring, Unspectacular Facts about Me

Karin at Knitting & tagged me for the six things in the title. I got more than this list of quirky things, but they might be too spectacular for this forum:

1. I charge whatever I can on credit cards to earn points and rebates.
2. I have pen, paper and calculator in every room of the house.
3. My day job is working with numbers but I consider myself mainly a "word" person.
4. I'm madly in love with bunnies. One of the ladies at work brings her bunnies to the office on Fridays and lets me cuddle them. I'm working on getting my own fiber bunny.
5. I have a hard time talking to Chinese people in English.
6. I can write with both hands and my left-hand-writing looks like a different person.

I'll make the tagging easier -- leave me a comment and let me know if any of these fits what you think as "quirky"; then write six facts about yourself (on your own blog of course), without all the conditions.

Movies and TV Show

DVD:

1. Once -- Great music! Two independent musicians met and made lovely songs together, on and off screen. There is a nice clip of them singing together at SunDance on YouTube.

2. Captain Corelli's Mandolin -- Plenty of blood from the captain and pouty lips from Penélope Cruz, not enough mandolin.

3. Joy Luck Club -- The more years I spend in this country the better I can accept these "let's tell them what being Chinese is all about" kind of movies and books. There is a fraction of truth in everything, but it's like saying America is all about McDonalds or Morman temple. You get the idea.

4. Who Killed the Electric Car -- As the proud owner of a 2002 Prius since the dark age that we had to pre-order the car sight-unseen, I can be ever so "green". There is much buzz about electric cars these days. They are supposed to be cheaper to run, and better for the environment. But would someone please answer my questions: What's the actual cost for generating electricity? Not out of consumer's pocket, but the cost of supporting the infrastructure if the demand multiplies because of all the new electric cars on the American roads; the cost of production, transportation, and maintenance of the expanded system; the cost to the environment due to the increased production -- burning coal? new dams? solar panels within eyes reach? Will we need a power plant in every city to meet the demand? What will the earth look like when it's covered wall to wall with power lines? Will you still want to live here?

5. One Flew over Cuckoo's Nest -- Mental illness, that's something I can't deal with, even with Jack Nicholson in it.

6. House of Sand and Fog -- Great movie, great performance of Ben Kingsley, nightmarishly dark.

7. Chariots of Fire -- Bill's pick. He was motivated to start jogging when he saw the movie the first time, in 1981. Not this time around. Uncle Dursley from the HP movies has a small part in one of the scenes at King's Cross. Love the costumes.

8. Bend it Like Beckham -- We've seen Parminder Nagra for years in ER (Neela) and finally catch up on her coming-out movie. Glad I don't have a daughter and glad my son fits in his boy role, thank you.

9. Capote -- One of the Oscar best picture nominees during my short stunt at Netflix. Strange man, strange movie, but very well made (the movie, not the man).

10. Must Love Dogs -- After Capote we decided romantic comedy is the only way to go. John Cusack is cute, so are the dogs.

11. Citizen Kane -- Lesley's pick for our bookclub movie night. Great movie!

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Movies:

(We went to see two movies in a row, a rare occurrence for us)

1. Wall-E -- The last real Pixar movie. The story board way of creating a screenplay is nice to a point. I'm a bit tired of the big chase and ultra idealism in every Pixar movie. They need fresh blood. Nonetheless Wall-E is very well made and an excellent ending to the Pixar era.

2. Mama Mia -- One of the best movies I've ever seen, on par with The Sound of Music and Chicago. Bill is in love with Amanda Seyfried, until she opened her mouth in real live (find her on YouTube).

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TV Show:

Swingtown -- Review of 70s life and fashion, and get busy analyze relationships. I wasn't here in the 70s, so it's fun to see the wacky nylon shirts and disco balls, not to mention the music they picked were pretty good. Let me know if you watch the show, we can talk about the characters. There is a group on Ravelry if you are one of "us".

Recent Reads

1. The Broker, by John Grisham, (audiobook). More nerve ticking brain candies. I've been riding some rough waters at work lately and the book and movie list would show my desperate need for sugar. About this book, Grisham is a skillful writer, but he needs better content than cooking up these Tom and Jerry tour books sitting at his kitchen table in Mississippi. On the other hand, this is easy money for an established writer. In an interview posted on YouTube, after writing An Innocent Man, he said that he was to go back to writing fictions, because it's easier, and it sells.

2. The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. I heard the abridged audio version of this book before, and it's so much more fun to read the actual book, especially after I forced the bookclub to read another Gladwell book, Blink, with me. I found this clip on YouTube of Gladwell's speech at TED Conference in 2004. (By the way, if you haven't heard about TED, hurry up and visit their website, join the email updates and watch a few video clips. You won't regret.) Gladwell's image is almost comical, with the big hair, extra large forehead, two sizes too big clothes, but look at the expressive hands, this man is intelligent with an I. After watching this clip a few times, I had Gladwell's voice reading to me when I read the books this time around. Some interesting facts, Gladwell has a degree in history, and was a journalist before writing the two books, logging in a good number of years at The New Yorker and The Washington Post.

3. The Female Brain, by Louann Brizendine. The title of the book should be "The Typical Female Brain", and apply to yourself only if you consider yourself an average typical female. The subject matter is interesting and I'm glad the research is done to identify the development and characteristics of female brain from the regular male's. However as the owner of one of those female brains I can't stop getting emotional when our ovaries are lumped together as one big union, just like how a female brain supposed to respond.

4. Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman. My follow up reading of Goleman's Social Intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand and control one's own feelings and how it's expressed. Social Intelligence is similar ability but applies to others, to understand other people's feelings and address it appropriately. These are great books to learn the basics of the how's and why's of EQ and SQ. However the books include a large portion of Dilbert-like application of the Q's in American business world, may help sell a few million copies of the books, but degrades the research.

5. The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd. Story about a young girl in the south ran away from her father's home in search of the mystery of her mother. Similar to Nora Nora and Sweetwater Creek.

6. Devil Wears Prada, by Lauren Weisberger (audiobook). Entirely gratifying to see there is such a nasty boss out there. Things could be much worse, you know. Where is my designer purse?

7. To Infinity and Beyond, the Story of Pixar Animation Studios, by Karen Paik, forward by Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs and John Lassetter. Beautiful over sized book full of drafts and pictures from Pixar movies. I'm 10 years behind in understanding this great little company. When Henry was conceived Bill bought Pixar stock to celebrate. Two years ago I was sad to see the company was sold to Disney as I'm much less inclined to be associated today's Disney than a geeky local studio. Steve Jobs' contribution in this world is not creating a popular product, nor his showmanship, nor supporting Pixar when it was losing its footing, but his vision of computing and the drive to implement it.

8. The Hundred-Year Lie: How Food and Medicine Are Destroying Your Health, by Randall Fitzgerald. This world is absolutely completely contaminated by chemicals down to every molecule, and it's all one big plot by the US government and drug companies. What's your role in this?

9. The Master Butchers Singing Club, by Louise Erdrich (audiobook). There are butchers, someone sings, there was a dog that stole organs. Some books I just can't focus on, so when it was due I gladly returned it.

10. Howards End, by E. M. Forster (audiobook). I'm on CD # 5 of 11. It's a lengthy, well written book, but for some reason it's not penetrating my brains. I'm hearing lots of words, dialogues, descriptions of what people are doing, but can't get a grip on the story line or characters. Took me nearly two CDs to figure out Howards End is a place, not a dying person. It's a bookclub pick for August, so I will plow on till it's done.

11. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, by J. K. Rowling (audiobook). Book six of the Potter series. Listening to this book in the car with Henry while we commute to various summer camps (this week it's in Santa Cruz, an hour a day on the road). Since Henry already knows every word in all the books, it's easy to catch up if my mind skips a beat and miss a few chapters here and there. The movie is coming out in November.

12. Neither Here Nor There, by Bill Bryson. Bryson's account of his "goodbye Europe" trip before moving back to US. Great review of Europe geography, and stirs my travel bug again.

Two Years

A continuation of my hair cutting and growing story. Click on the link to fill yourself in for the background. 

This is the original length.

 

 First cut, April 2006

 

 Second cut, May 2006

 

 Third cut, July 2006

 

 Henry took this picture for me on Saturday, so it's almost exactly two years growth with couple of minor trimmings to even out the length. Pretty impressive growth, don't you think?

 

Happiness

When I started this blog two years ago, I was working at Netflix, 0.4 miles from my home, running their Ad Sales on the finance side of the house, and feeling completely empty. The boss was a micro manager and eventually the project fell through and I was axed.

I'm two years older and wiser. After much digging in what's left of my brains, I began to figure out a few things that didn't make me happy:

-- Having the bragging rights for working in a "cool" company was not my life time goal
-- Working for an accounting manager certainly put a big dent in my happiness, worse yet, it happened before and I had temporary memory loss at the sight of the big number on the offer letter
-- Participating in the Netflix initiation dance and act like a fool brings one's ego to a new low
-- While doubling my salary in one year was an accomplishment, it's important to remember I was seriously underpaid for many years and chasing a fatter pay check should not be a reason for changing jobs
-- Watching the company stock tumble and 5% of my salary disappear was very sad
-- Free soda and plenty of company gears does not make up the lost pay, tho I do appreciate the plastic utensils available everywhere except for Seagate
-- Leaving my child to be brought up by care givers feeds the ego but damps a mother's heart
-- Unfortunately, Jocelyn, adding my stash gives me a small satisfaction, for a short time (but that obviously didn't stop me from buying yarn)

Happiness

Happiness is coming downstairs on a Sunday morning and my husband gets up from the breakfast table, big grin on his face, saying "There is my family!" and plants a big kiss on my forehead.

Happiness is seeing my child all hot and sweaty from playing basketball.

Happiness is watching my child grow up all boy and reminding him a millionth time, "Scrub your neck!"

Happiness is to be able to focus and multi-task at the same time.

Happiness is getting comments on my blog, and watching the number of little hearts grow on Ravelry (being added as favorite by other Rav users).

Happiness is handing my Muir to Jocelyn and watching her go all misty.

Happiness is floored by Jocelyn's stash.

Happiness is to plan where I want to be in ten years.

Happiness is to look up the boss's boss's boss's home address on Zillow and go "I thought he was much better off than that!"

Happiness is to tell the boss " Screw you, I'm outta here!!"

So, my friends, leave a comment and make me happy :-)

A Fool's Manual

Lesson 1. When they say, "Don't try this at home", listen. Lesson 2. Always remember your age, or at least remember you are not the same age as your child. Lesson 3. Taking ones shirt off while laying flat on ones back may cause neck injury. Lesson 4. Sometimes it's mighty nice to spend quality time with your TV, enjoy while you can. Last Saturday Henry got his purple belt in Tae Kwon Do. The child has been practicing for the last year and half and making great progress. His instructor wishes there are more students like Henry. Later in the day we went back to the studio to watch a black belt testing. One of the new black belt holders is in his 30s. In the audience there were couple of ladies from the adult class, one of them being someone I work with. We chatted after the test and I mightily admired their courage and persistence. Sunday morning I did my usual yoga stretches, then tried Kicking Combination Number One that Henry had showed me before -- front kick, sliding front kick, jump front kick and pop up front kick. All was well until my neck decided to go a different direction than my body. It was a slight strain, not bad, I could feel it whenever my neck had to move, but it didn't stop me from walking to the farmers market with my friend and then hang out at the mall. Or maybe the mall made me forget about the pain the neck. Monday the neck was a bit stiff, and I had to move my head with my hands, still not too bad. Monday night I tried to take my shirt off while laying flat on my back. My neck decided that was too much to ask for. The pain shot though my head and down the spine. I couldn't sleep half of the night. The rest of the week was a blur. There were lots of painkillers, lots of time in front of the TV, and unfortunately, lots of pressure to show up at work. My beloved gave me nightly massages, brought dinners home, along with two bunches of daffodils. They are all blooming now, bright yellow, and beautiful.

The Irony of Solar Power

Some of you might remember that I drive a classic Prius (second year). I'm all for clean energy, or saving energy for that matter. Last year I seriously thought about investing in a solar company freshly opened in my town (which by the way, has recently been crowned Los Idiotas by my talented friend Zelda), until it turned out they only do installations. The solar panels used in sunny California are made by a subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor, SunPower. SunPower was in the news recently. The CEO was featured in San Jose Mercury News Business section in an interview about how well the company is doing and all that. This renewed my interest in this wonderful plentiful renewable energy. SunPower makes solar panels that are installed on commercial or residential buildings. The uniform looking, stylish black panels sit on the roof, convert solar energy into electricity. The initial investment could be high, but the energy is clean, there is no harmful by product, and you get to have a PG&E bill a fraction of what you pay now. Sounds like a perfect win-win situation. One of the main materials used in solar cells is silicon. SunPower has recently signed not one but two deals to import silicon from -- guess who: Saudi Arabia Read more about it here. Using the logic of this VP of Communications at SunPower, Saudi's know Americans will do anything for energy, they know how to do business (aka, manipulate) these silly Americans, then we should go on and keep them happy. Cause they'll get what they want (US dollars), and we'll get what we think we want (clean energy?). World peace. Let's not even think about all the sand in Sahara desert and all those folks that can use a few dollars there.

Ravelry

A few things I've learned from and about Ravelry:

1. You have to be a Ravelry member to see the content, so if you send a link of your projects to a non-knitting friend to show off. Well, all will be lost.

2. You can look up a member by ID, name, email address and blog.

3. Once you find someone's profile you can add her to your friends. You don't need her permission to do so, but she will get an email on Ravelry that you have added her to your friends. Hopefully she will appreciate your friendly gesture and add you to her friends as well.

4. You can look up designers by their names, and if they are on Ravelry you can add them to your friends as well.
5. Once you have all these friendly knitters in your friends list, you can click on "friend activity" to see what your friends have added to their queues and projects; click on "friends' blogs" to see latest entries on your friends' blogs. That way you don't have to check on each individual blog every day to see who among your friends is in the writing mood.

6. In the "friend activity", a queued project links to a pattern; click on it and it will take you to the pattern page. From there you can click on "add to faves" or "to queue". Some days I find two or three friends queue the same project.

7. Back to "friend activity". Big Time Knitter's Master Piece is your friend Big Time Knitter's own project, Master Piece, that she's working on or finished. Click on it and you'll see the project page. Click on "add to faves" to add this particular project to your faves (use the button often, it makes people happy, at least me). If the project is linked to the pattern, click on it and then you can "add to faves" or "to queue".

8. From "my notebook", click on "queue" to view your what's in your queue, grab the little green arrows to move projects up and down.

9. Click on "favorites" to see what you've accumulated in the stack, projects (with the knitter's picture), patterns, designers, etc.

10. There are many groups on Ravelry, but I don't find them very inspiring. The only conversation that I enjoyed reading was on Asian Knitters group about where everyone came from. A knitter I met in this group, Svetlana (Korean grew up Russian and now in US), is incredibly talented. Her latest creation is a jacket she saw in a German magazine. She knitted it up from a picture, took her all three days. Check her out.

11. If you are still reading, my Ravelry ID is bitsnpieces, be my friend and make me happy.

12. Last but not least, there is going to be a Ravelry's mingle at Stitches West on the Thursday evening before Market Preview. Anyone going?

Alba Road Revisited

As if last Saturday was not enough to proof my lack of mental capacity -- heavy storms, downed trees, power outage, driving in the dark -- I went back to the area on Monday in an attempt to take some pictures of the big redwood tree that we drove under.

First is a map of the area the Quacker Center gave me before they led me out (click on the picture to see a bigger version). The little block in the lower right corner marked DL is the lodge we were in. QC is Quacker Center. We'd go up the fire road and catch Alba Road (the 45 degree slope was somewhere there), and the downed redwood tree is at the end of Alba Road, right before Highway 9, which is the main road we need to take. If my car couldn't get under the tree, we'd have to turn back on Alba Road, follow the Empire Grade, Jamison Creek, Highway 236 route, which would add an extra 45 minutes of driving on mountain roads in pitch black.

My little green engine saves lives.




Got there just a tad too late and Caltrans just cut the tree down, so all I saw was a tree stump. It's still pretty impressive, and from the picture you can see how low it is compare to the pick up truck.



The house on the other side of the road got a neat slice in the side. The lady of the house was sitting under the skylight when the tree fell so she was not injured. What a lucky lady!



Last one, it hailed in the early afternoon. This picture was taken from inside the lodge. Not golfball size, but hail nonetheless.

New Year's Meme

My friend Sarah tagged me for New Year's meme. Here are my answers: New Year's Eve -- do you like to stay in or go out? Definitely stay in, but would go out if there are close friends to hang out with in a safe place. Do you like to stay up or just go to sleep? We usually stay pass midnight, so it’s just another night. We tend to stay up later since the next day is usually not a work day, and to keep Trinket company when he freaks out in all the firecrackers. This year however, he slept in a doggie bed under our TV stand while I blasted away Il Divo on PBS. Trinket slept right through the firecrackers. Viva Il Divo! Any special plans this year? I assume you meant New Year’s Eve? No special plans at all. Though we have a habit of letting Henry celebrate New York New Year before his bed time, we managed to miss the ball drop this year. Oh well, he didn’t turn into a pumpkin. What's your favorite New Year's memory? Y2K. Henry was about ten months old. It was our first time to watch the ball drop in New York on TV and he really cheered for it. Earlier in the day we also watched the celebrations in Paris and China. Do you make New Year's Resolutions? Yes and never manage to keep them. What else is new :-) Feel like sharing them? Sure. I’m going to write Christmas letter this year. After receiving letters from other families, I feel like I own everyone if I don’t write. I bet before I know it, it’d be December 15th 2008 and I’d say, well it’s too later for this year. If anyone keeps track, remind me in November that I should start the letter. Do you do anything special on New Year's Day? My mom has a flight to Houston to see my brother on January 2nd, so we went to Carmel to pick her up on New Year’s Day. It’s also the last day of my eleven day furlough so I was a bit anxious to get things in place before heading back to work. I’m happy to be back on regular schedules, but not excited to face the very busy work days in the next three or four weeks. I will tag Jennifer (Yawn Over), Jocelyn, Lisa and Sonya.

Gift

For a late anniversary gift, my beloved husband took me to see this on Sunday:

It is my greatest pleasure to share my life with you, to be together with you, happily ever after. Happy 15th!

Bocelli's voice transcends music and language to a medium of soothing sound. It fills the stadium while touching each and every one. It's a gentle massage on the soul.

What I've been Reading, Watching and Listening to ...

Reading

- (audio book) Sweetwater Creek by Anne Rivers Siddons. For those of you that have read Nora Nora, this book seems to be very similar in characters and storyline. A lonely preteen girl growing up wild, after her mother ran away from home when she was very young (except for in this book the mother is, presumably, still alive), a loving yet distant father, full of charisma, dignity and personality. Comes a young woman, beautiful, sexy, introduces the girl to the wonders of the world through literature and her own wild and painful experience. In the end, all is well. (More on Potter later) Shall we say, it was a tad repetitive. I much enjoyed her Up Island and Low Country, at least the weather changed.

- (audio book) Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson. After the library chasing down a copy of the audio book for the last six months, I finally got to hear it. And as it turned out, I have heard it a few years ago when I first "discovered" Bryson. He took a grand British tour amongst the isles before moving back to the US. Interesting, yet much less memorable than say, A Walk in the Woods.

- (audio book) Blink, the power of thinking without thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell who also wrote The Tipping Point. Very insightful analysis about how the first two seconds of impression drives our decisions. Gladwell is half Jamaican, and at some pointed decided to grow his hair long. He was stopped by two policemen because they thought he looked like a criminal that they were after. Gladwell pointed out that the sketch showed a person with a different built, different weight, different facial features; in fact, the only similarity was it was a black man with long hair. This event drove Gladwell into research and eventually writing this book. What better way to get even with two unfair policemen and racial discrimination than writing a best seller with them as the subject matter?

- (audio book) Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver. I read her Poinsonwood Bible with my bookclub a few years ago. Now with her new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle just came out, I'm on a Kingsolver kick. Only restriction would be how many books they have on CD at the library.

- HP7DH, that's short hand for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows (book 7). We took Henry to the book release party on that Friday night. He finished the book on Monday. I'm not going to read this book, in fact, I'm so disturbed about Sirius Black and Dumbledore's death I wouldn't bother reading book five and six. However, to keep up with the child, I read hundreds of email discussions about HP7DH. If you are the email group type, take a look at the HP for Grown up on Yahoo Groups. There are close to 30,000 members in the group, generating well over 1,000 messages a week. Some very interesting discussions there.

Watching

- Couple of Andrea Bocelli's DVDs, A Night in Tuscany and Under the Desert Sky. I've watched just about every video clip with him on YouTube, some many times, like this one I posted earlier. Speaking of this video clip, I sent it to a woman at work. She first asked me "Is that English?" No, he's singing in Italian. After watching for a minute of so, she commented, "I keep expecting something to happen, like she's going to fall or something." Why can't people just enjoy a good performance? Sorry, just have to rant.

- Phatom of the Opera, the movie version starring Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, and Miranda Richardson. First got it through Netflix, then my husband bought me my own copy. I've also watched various versions of video clips on YouTube. For some reason I thought Antonio Banderas was in the movie. Found him in some of the YouTube clips, but not in the movie. However the movie is much worth owning even without Mr. Banderas.

- Netflix recently added a new feature, Instant Watch, some numbers of free hours for subscribers depending on the membership level. Nice way to try new movies that you are curious about but don't want to go through the trouble of adding it to the queue, waiting for it in the mail, watch five minutes and return it. So far I've watched a few movies/shows in full length: America's Castles: The Homes of Frank Lloyd Wright, The Human Face (only watched the first in the series, Face to Face, but plan to finish the other three. This series goes very well with Blink.), Modern Marvels: The Manhattan Project. I can't believe I'm tooting the horns for Netflix, as I have not been on good terms with them since soon after I joined the company last year, but the Instant Watch is a good feature to take advantage of. Good to have when it's free, as one of the analysts said on Motley Fools, and people probably would not want to pay for it. Netflix stock has been tumbling recently, in fact, had never reached the height since when I joined the company. My pay, as with every Netflix employee, included a minimum 5% stock option (so I got paid only 95% of salary). That's a pure loss of 5% of my income that I will never forget.

Listening To go along with my Italian theme, I set up an Andrea Bocelli channel on the online radio Pandora, and guess what, the other one is Frank Sinatra. Pandora does not have classic music, but between the two channels I get plenty of Bocelli, Sinatra, Dean Martin, Hayley Westenra, Sarah Brightman, Micheal Crawford, Michael Ball, Il Divo, and Charlotte Church.