Oliver the Vampire

Tonight after diner, Yang was scooping out some ice cream for Victor and Oliver. For no obvious reason, Oliver bit Yang on the leg, very hard. The skin on the leg was penetrated and some blood was out. Oliver got a spanking. Victor, showing his caring side, went upstairs and brought Yang some bandage. We forgave Oliver at the end and he nodded to agree not to bite again. Still, we didn't know what prompted him to bite that hard.

Does China need Bush's Tax Rebate

I look forward to the $1800 tax rebate promised by the US government next month. (I have two kids so am qualified for $1800.) When I get the rebate check, I won't rush out to Walmart to spend it, sorry George W. Instead, I need to send the money to China to pay off a personal loan. A rich relative in China lent some money to Yang and me so we could buy a property in Shanghai.

The tax rebate will simulate the economy, the Chinese economy. Ironically the Chinese economy is growing too fast and requires some cooling.

Actually, I won't be too different from an average American. The stuffs that we buy from Walmart are made in China, and the rebate money will be sent to China one way or the other. It's faster and more direct in my case.

MDX vs. Altima Hybrid

We need a new car. Yang's current car, 93 Infiniti G20, is reaching the end of life. It's drivable but we are not sure how long it will last. We sinked in a couple thousand dollars a year for maintainance. We almost brought a new car in 2004, but decided not to at the last minute. Four years later, we really need one, but what kind?

I drive a used 03 Acura TL and like it. Our first choice is a used Acura MDX. It seats 7 people and will be useful when the extended family go out together. For the last few weeks I have been doing some window shopping. The local Acura dealers has some used Acura MDX's but none of them offered me a good price. Yang and I also tested the latest MDX. Great car but too expensive for us.

Last Saturday (4/26) I visited Nissan dealer. They had the new 08 Nissan Altima Hybrid on display. After a quick test drive, I just brought it. I called Yang and she didn't even bother to come for a test drive. I brought a base model with no options, and the price is slightly below the official invoice price. Next April I should be able to get a hybrid car rebate from the US government. So overall it's good buy, and I didn't have any stress throughout this process.

The car looks slick from outside. I didn't pay much attention of the interior. When Yang went to pick up the car, she wasn't happy to see the dark interior. It's too late. She would have to get use to it. After a few days, Yang gets use to it already. It sure gets good MPG. For now we are keep the G20 and will rotate the cars for our commute.

How to Obliterate Iran

How to Obliterate a Country

Last week Senator Clinton made the following comments

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Senator Clinton should be locked up in a mental hospital instead of being allow to run for president. I feel safer with Dick Cheney as the President than Senator Clinton.

According to the Webster dictionary, obliterate means

• a: to remove utterly from recognition or memory
• b: to remove from existence : destroy utterly all trace, indication, or significance of
• c: to cause to disappear (as a bodily part or a scar) or collapse (as a duct conveying body fluid) :

Senator Clinton meant a or b in her comments. As if this was not enough, she added a redundant totally before the verb obliterate.

I have many questions for Senator Clinton on this:

1. What's detailed plan to obliterate Iran?
2. How many people are you willing to kill in the process?
3. What weapons do you plan to use?
4. How this would make American safer?
5. Did you ask the people in Israel if this is their preferred plan?

Iran is one of the oldest country in the world with more than 5000 years rich history. It has roughly 70 million people. There are about six cities with more than 1 million residents: Tehran, Mashhad , Isfahan ,Karaj , Tabriz and Shiraz , etc. To obliterate Iran, these cities would need to be destoried. Senator Clinton, what will the order of obliteration of these cities? There are many Christans and Jews living in Tehran, do you have any plan to spare them?

I assume that she plan to nuclear weapons because I really don't know any other ways. It's time for the voters her to send her packing. This is a more pleasant outcome for Senator Clinton than facing trial in a war crime court.

New Addition?

New Addition?

Yang found out that she is pregnant this week. This is unexpected for both of us. Victor is four and half years old; Oliver is close to three year old. Yang and I are used to having two kids and our various routines now. We are cruising now, but our life will change soon.

I want a girl. Two boys and one girl will make our household gender balanced. But the sex is already decided and we'll just have to wait and see.

We'll spoil the little one. Hopefully Victor and Oliver won't be too jealous and they can be good brother to the little one.

Three children make a perfect sized family. The parents should be able to handle one more kids than the total number of adults. When there are three kids, they can form more combinations of ways to entertain one another. Victor can probably baby-sit the youngest. There may be the days that Yang and I will have to give up and let three of them rule the family. So three is perfect.

A Visit to the Dentist

Oliver has been back since Monday. Our house became busy. Victor and Oliver play together, watch kids TV show together, and flight with each other over toys and some objects. They do get alone and they talk to each other. Oliver doesn't speak English. But somehow they can understand each other most of the times. Both of them went to the dentist this morning. Victor doesn't have any cavity. The dentist wanted us to reach the molars when brushing. Oliver wasn't so lucky. Two teeth were colliding and there was a small hole on one tooth. He needed to have the hole filled soon. They got two balloons from the dentist.

American Mom

My Mom took the US citizenship interview this morning. She passed the interview in about 10 minutes. All her study and practice in the last month paid off. I am glad I helped her too.

Now I have an American mom, a wife and two kids. I guess I should follow their footsteps.

Beautiful kidneys

I paid my annul visit to the radiologist yesterday. This was not usually a pleasant experience. The exam required fasting: I could not eat or drink past midnight. In the morning I had to drive for about one hour in rush hour traffic to get there, and then waited in the lobby to sign in.

I met a nice technician who did my checkup. She looked like the ultrasound technician from the movie Juno. She was very talkative and encouraging. The whole exam lasted fifteen minutes.

“I'm not suppose to tell you but everything looks fine.” She told me. By rule, technicians would just pass the results to my doctor and let her interpret the results.

“You have beautiful kidneys,” She continued. This was a sentence that I had never heard in my life.

“Thank you.” I didn't know how to react.

“You have good genes," she said. "This is my first exam today. It's good to see healthy organs. You made my day.”

After the exam she asked if I needed any water. I'd never met a medical professional who is so personal. She consulted with a radiologist then showed me out. “Have a good year!”

She certainly made my day and I hoped that she can do my exam again next year. We can all make a difference in this world. She was definitely practicing this.

I need to call my parents to thank them.

Bill Richardson is in debt, still begging for money

But don't ask Wen Ho. May be he can ask Obama to bail him out?

---

Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 17:36:26 -0400
To: xxxxxxxxxxxx
From: info@richardsonforpresident.com
Subject: One Last Request

	Dear Wen Ho, Millions of people have turned out in record numbers during our Democratic presidential process. What it shows me is how energized our Party is and how strong our desire is to take back the White House after eight years of Bush administration arrogance, incompetence, and recklessness. And while Governor Richardson left the field some three months ago, the debts we incurred in working to get his message out have not. Thanks to our many supporters, we have begun to whittle that number down but there is much more to do--and I'm hoping you will help us finally retire it all with one last contribution. We changed this race in important ways that will truly make a difference to our country. Now, both Democratic candidates are committed to ending the war in Iraq and getting all of our troops out. Now, both Democratic candidates are committed to charting a new energy future for America. And now, both Democratic candidates are committed to a foreign policy based on diplomacy and respect for international human rights. The goal of all of us who worked so hard on the Governor's campaign now is to ensure a Democrat gets elected in the fall and to make sure that Democrats control our national agenda starting next year. But please, as one last gesture to Bill Richardson's extraordinary leadership in our democratic process, help us close our books and live up to our obligations by making one last contribution to retire his campaign debt. Thank you so much for everything you've done to help. Sincerely, Dave P.S. A number of our friends in the Democratic Party have asked to reach out to you via email to enlist your help on behalf of other like-minded candidates and causes. If you would rather not receive any messages from them, you can let us know by clicking here . Here's to putting our national agenda back in the hands of people who share our progressive ideals.

Paid for by Richardson for President, Inc. Contributions are not tax deductible for Federal income tax purposes. All content © 2007 Richardson for President, Inc. To unsubscribe, go to: http://action.richardsonforpresident.com/unsubscribe

---

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Do you own a resort in Goa?

Every once a while, a seemingly casual conversation with someone can turn into an important moment. A year ago, RM told he would retire with his family to Goa as soon as he could save enough money; he would own and manage a resort there. He told me it could be a good business to manage a resort in Goa, serving many visitors from Europe. For sure it would be a completely different and perhaps more fulfilling career than the demanding high-tech management job, working with colleagues from twelve time zones away every day.

RM’s dream stirred up my imagination about my life and retirement plan for my family. What was my plan? Was I sacrificing too much for my job responsibility? Did I spend enough time with my kids? Should I think about more important things?

Did I have my own resort in Goa?

RM was a colleague of mine from Gurgaon, tall, slim, and charismatic. Although a dedicated family man, he had never missed out on any fun. A chain-smoker and food lover, he could cook delicious food and know all the good local restaurants. RM always kept a cool head when things appeared to be out of control. But what impressed me the most was his dream for a resort in Goa.

Life is short. I may not have a five year plan of semi-retiring, but I should have a resort in Goa for me and my family today. Always remember why I’m working, and make time for the important people.

I don’t know how close RM is with his plan. Wish him success. Maybe I can invest in his family resort and get to visit there soon…

So, do you own a resort too?

Baidu.com endorses Obama?

Barack is nominated as the most-impacting person on baidu’s latest profile page (http://renwu.baidu.com/ ). There are only six featured profiles so far, and Barack is the first non-Chinese featured. I checked the page. The page is filled with pictures and stories that are very informational and generally positive about Obama. Unfortunately the headline reads " 'Black Kid' Obama: Eveything is Possible!" The Chinese media still needs some training about racial stereotype.

Similarly the popular blog that reported this story also showed some ignorance about Baidu.com, assuming it somehow represented the view of the Chinese government.

RFK and MLK

RFK is one of my favorite politicians.

Copyright: Public Domain
Credit: Photograph by Abbie Rowe, National Park Service, in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Sunday on the hiking trail

Yang took today off from writing to spend time with Victor and me. Three of us went on the Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline hiking trail. The air was cool today, a good day for hiking. We went much further than last two weeks when Victor and I were hiking by ourselves. Along the way we saw a beautiful sunflower plant. Sunflower is Yang's favorite flower. The soil surrounding the plant was very dry. We didn't know how this plant grew so healthy among other wildflowers.

Two deer were next to the trail and three of us caught a glimpse of them. They bounded away as we walked closer and before I could take a picture. A big black cow was nearby too. It chewed the cudd and watched us walking by gingerly.

When we were on the top of the hill surrounding by the trees and grass, my cell phone rang. It was a car dealer from the local Acura dealership asking me to buy a car. He was persistent but I managed to hang up after a minute of conversation.

Victor slipped a few times on the way down. We decided that we would find a flatter hiking trail next time.

Firefighting

Victor was always interested in fire trucks. He has one or two in his toy cars collection. Recently he picked up books about firefighter and firefighting vehicles every time we visited library. Last week I read him fire fighting related books for several nights in a row. He was fascinated by all these fire fighting cars, plans and boats. We learned many facts about firefighting together. For example, we learned different methods of fighting house fires, farm house fires, forest fires, boat fires and airport fires. Victor was especially impressed by the fire boats and their awesome water guns.We watched the movie Brotherhood together last night. It was a documentary about a few New York city firefighters. This was not a kids movie, but Victor watched with intense interest. For a four year old, these are one of the coolest thing on earth.

Sick Week

The flu bug is spreading around these days. In my office a few people got sick. Some were sick for the second time in a couple of weeks. In our household Victor got sick first, with sore throat and nasal congestion. Next Yang was infected by Victor, having the same symptoms for the last two days. The flu appeared to be a mild one. Neither Victor nor Yang had fever. I was the lucky one who wasn’t affected. I haven’t got sick this year and would like to keep it this way.

Victor became difficult when he was sick. He made a fuss about little things and cried a lot. He refused to take any medicine and clung to Yang. Hopefully Victor and Yang’s flu will pass soon.

How teachers respond to the hitting

The next day (March 28, 2008) I talked to Victor’s teachers: S and P. They were eager to know about my talk with the director. Perhaps they had been given the same answer and wanted to know if I had better luck.

I told them: either Victor had to leave or we should tolerate it. Victor would rather be hit every day than go to another class.

P: That’s so sweet.

S: Oh, but that is so sad. [She looked away.]

S came up with a plan: designate a teacher to shadow N every day.

I saw them doing it sometimes, but shadowing a three-year-old for 8 hours/day is easier said than done, especially on the playground. I read that an Olympic track champion once followed his 2.5-year-old boy and imitated his moves. By noon he collapsed in exhaustion. I have only gratitude and admiration for Victor’s teachers. They are on my side, and I feel supported.

Y: Thank you so much. I know how difficult this is when you have other 20 children to work with. But this is for N’s own good. I heard he’s tuned down.

S: He’s still hitting. With this plan I feel more confident.

Y: I hope he’ll change. It’s for everyone, most of all for N.

S: I know, and it’s your right to be concerned. I want Oliver to be here, so this is a family business.

Actually I’m not sure if I want Oliver to go through this. He’ll be three in May. There’s plenty of time for him to grow up. I don’t want it to start with N if I can help it. Oliver doesn’t know English so it’ll be hard for him to protect/stand up for himself. Yet, I love S and hope Oliver to have the benefit of her guidance.

Every day I ask Victor if he’s hit at school. Sometimes he says, “I don’t know.” “I forgot.” He may not want me to make a big deal of it, but I have to ask. Yesterday (April 2) he said, “N hit A twice. She cried two times because she was hurt.” A was like Victor’s “girlfriend,” although he said, “Eww.”

A part of me thinks something is wrong if a gentle child gets hit, s/he should cry and get over it. I don’t want to go to a meeting and be pushed down to the floor. I get up and say, “My boss is a spirited man.”

I don’t think I can ever do that. If I can, something vital inside me must have died.

(Originally posted at Yang's blog.)

How a 4-year-old practices non-violence

A pacifist gets feisty when someone hits her child.

Victor is an introvert, like me, low-key and easygoing. He loves the preschool and calls his classmates girlfriends and boyfriends, except for a few children who hits and curses. One child, N, hits/pushes Victor every day. Victor is not singled out, because N hits others as well. But he likes to approach Victor, and sometimes they form a bond. Victor plays with N and gets hit. To get back at the aggressor, he calls N "Crybaby" to make him mad. Then the conflict escalates.

One day N did some stunt. A teacher couldn't catch him. N threw a rock and hit Victor's head. N was then taken to the director. Hearing the news, I felt as if someone bashed me on the head. I complained to the teacher and director. N was put on a "program" to learn proper behaviors. I heard that he has tuned down, but Victor still gets hit/pushed every day. Since he is not hurt, I ignored his complaints, such as, N called "Victor" during the naptime, N bared his belly, N took off his pants and showed his booty (not in the bathroom). N slapped a teacher on the hand and spat on her.

Yesterday Victor said he was pushed down three times and cried three times. His teacher saw one incident at least, but didn't see Victor cry. I talked to the director again. Evidently she has heard such complaints.

Director: Don't listen to other parents' stories. You should come to the classroom and observe the children. There's more to it than you thought.

Yang: I heard the complaints from Victor, not from other parents. [I haven't spent a lot of time in the classroom but I had some observations. Once I saw N slap a teacher. Another time N chased after boy J, who didn't want to play with him. Being the selfish mother that I am, I told Victor to imitate J. But Victor couldn't behave like J to save his own skin.]

D: The teachers should intervene.

Y: A teacher cannot predict when a child is going to hit. After N hits someone, she can only sit him down and tell him not to hit, which is not effective because he doesn’t listen.

D: N’s parents came to observe him. They said he doesn’t behave like this at home. They are doing what we tell them to do. I cannot remove N from the classroom. If you want, I can put Victor in another class.

Y: But Victor was here first. [Victor has been in the class for a year and half, and N came two months ago.]

D: Technically, N came first. He has been with the Center since he was six months old. [Now he’s three.]

Y: Really? I am very surprised. Then there’s little chance that he’ll change.

D: I won’t say that. I won’t give up on any child, until we go through the program, which takes some time to complete, we cannot make him drop out. N is not a bad child. He is a spirited child.

Y: [I didn’t care to label N as any kind of child. I didn’t want Victor to be his punching bag. It's not fair or acceptable to me.] N needs to respect other people’s boundaries. Otherwise, it’s not safe for Victor to be in the same classroom with him. [N also hits other children every day.]

D: Other children also do things to N.

Y: I know Victor calls him “Crybaby” a few times to make him mad.

D: You see, you need to teach Victor to stop doing that.

Y: Comparing to hitting someone, this is less offensive; besides, it’s the only thing Victor can do. He cannot hit N back, so he calls him “Crybaby” to get back at him. It’s the only power Victor has over N. If you take that away, N still hits, but Victor can do nothing to express his anger. He is victimized and powerless. This is a vicious cycle.

D: What do you want me to do?

Y: I came to you and hope you might have a solution.

D: I offer that you come to observe, or you move Victor to another class.

Y: Victor loves his teachers. [Victor told me he needed to pee, he was probably bored. I asked him to wait a second. He climbed into my chair so I had to stand up.]

D: Why don’t you control your child? Sit down. [It was getting personal. Victor and I spoke in Mandarin.]

Y: Maybe you can understand: as a parent, I’m worried about his safety at school. In the other class, there is also an aggressive child. He’s very tall and his name starts with N. He hit Victor but not on a daily basis.

D: I’m not removing N from the class. His mother is a nursing student here.

Y: [I didn’t think this was relevant. I realized I was in the wrong political camp: the wrong race and social/economic class. I didn’t have a chance.] Will N be in the summer program?

D: Why? If he’s here, Victor won’t come?

Y: I want to know my options.

D: I don’t know at this time.

Y: I want to avoid conflict as best as I can. So it’ll be helpful if I know whether N will be in the class.

D: I don’t know.

Y: Thank you for your time.

D: You’re welcome. I’ll be here until eight o’clock.

[We both smiled.]

I came outside and asked Victor, “How about I switch you to the other class?”

He burst into tears. “No, I love Ms. S!”

“But N hits you every day.”

“Let him hit me. I want to be in Ms. S’s class.”

“But I don’t want him to hit you.”

“It’s okay. N is funny sometimes.”

“How?”

He couldn’t tell me. “I want to be in Ms. S’s class.”

There was not much I could say to that.

On our way home, we listened to a Chinese song, Sailor. He hums the lyrics:

在受人欺负的时候总是听见水手说/他说风雨中这点痛算什么/
Whenever I’m bullied I remember what the sailor said/In the storm my pain is nothing
擦干泪不要怕/至少我们还有梦
Dry my tears, don’t be afraid/At least we still have dreams
他说风雨中这点痛算什么/擦干泪不要问为什么　
In the storm my pain is nothing /Dry my tears and don’t ask why

I had low expectations for the preschool. I wanted Victor to learn English, make friends and have fun. He has done that and more, he is learning to practice non-violence. It’s easy to punch a smaller child, but it takes courage, wisdom and self-reliance to practice non-violence. Victor has taken on the task voluntarily because he won’t succumb to a bully either by withdrawing or imitating the aggressor.

Pay your bills Citizen Gyanendra

For a French revolution admirer like me, the situation in Napel is as close as it can get to be like France 200 years ago. I would like to be an MP in Nepal now. It's reported that Nepal's King refused to pay the electric bill. (http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Quirks/2008/02/29/nepal_monarchy_must_pay_electric_bill/5564/) I am not sure if the government has done anything yet.

My advise to the Nepalese government:

• Send Gyanendra the water bill.
• Send Gyanendra the gas bill.
• Send Gyanendra the electric bill again with 10% interest.
• Send Gyanendra the property tax bill of his palace.
• Cut the electricity, water, and gas to his palace right away.
• Seize his property to pay these bills, auction off his possessions.
  

Citizen Gyanendra needs to start making an honest living for himself. I suggest him becoming a clown in a circus.

Holy Watir!

I was in a tight spot last week. As a middle manager at a small software company, I was in charge of starting the load test practice. We set the goal and plan of actions. The major problem was that our software was designed in a way that prevented any load testing tool to function properly without any major effort. I tried WAPT, jMeter, and Grinder. While some worked better than others, all of them failed due to some fundamental problems with the user interface layer design. I pushed the development manager in charge to make the changes. But it was difficult, time-consuming and risky to change, and the manager was already stressed out over a couple of other projects.

The deadline was approaching.

Watir was designed to do single user automation testing. It just invoked an IE instance and drove the UI elements in a web page. One could always create multiple IE instances to simulate multiple users. This was not a preferred way to do load test. But I was desperate.

I wanted to conduct three kind of test:

• Longevity test: to make sure our server can stay healthy under heavy load for many hours.
• Capacity test: to measure the number of concurrent users one server node can support for more an extended period of time.
• Response time test: to measure the response time under typical scenarios.

I figured that Watir could do the first two kind of tests. So I spent about two hours modifying an existing script that a colleague of mine had written last Friday. I used Firebug to identify the dynamically generated HTML elements. Then I installed Ruby and Watir on a VMWare image that I allocated enough memory. We were ready to go.

On Saturday morning, when I got the green light from our QA team in India that it was all clear, I restarted the QA server and started my longevity test. The test script fired up and closed about fifteen IE windows. It paused then different users logged in and logged out. The screens were flashing. The VM image was just fine, no memory leak after a long period of time. Ruby and Watir seemed to be much improved. I managed to go to hiking with Victor while starting and stopping multiple load tests.

Ultimately the longevity tests failed. And we are still debugging the problem. The poor man's stress testing tool was just amazing; I could never imaging that it just works out-of-box. Thanks to Yun-Ping who introduced me to this tool.

A side note: So far Tomcat lasted ten times as long as WS in my longevity tests.

Citizenship Test

The date is near for my Mom to take the citizenship test. She still goes to classes to practices with several volunteer teachers. My brother and I occasionally call her to do some impromptu tests. She becomes so good with routine questions that her answers are automatic. Even with some random free formed questions, Mom begins to pick up the keyword in these questions and answers them. My prediction is that she has 60% probability to pass, as long as she is not intimidated by the process and interviewer. If she can answer the questions from phone without looking at the questioner, then she should be able to answer them face to face.

Indian in Szechuan restaurant

R is a colleague of mine from the Delhi office. He is a hard working hard driving manager and chain smoker. He can be up for several days in a row with very little sleep. Sometimes I wonder if he is in the right business as a software programmer. He is more suitable as a union leader or in a rock band. When I visited India, R used to show me around and take me to restaurants. We stayed up very late and I always drank and smoked with him.

R loves spicy food. When he visited the Bay Area last year, I took him to a Szechuan restaurant in San Mateo for lunch. This restaurant had a reputation of serving very spicy food. I thought he would be satisfied. We ordered cold noodles, fish in tofu and another seafood dish. All three were marked with red peppers on the menu. When the dishes came, R didn't think they were spicy enough, he kept on pouring hot sauce. I and the waiter were both surprised. R was sweating but pressed on.

As much as he liked the spicy dishes, R disapproved the cold noodles. "Why do they serve the food cold?" I guess it's not normal to serve cold dishes in India.