Harold Ford, Jr. for Vice President

Obama should pick Harold Ford, Jr. as his running mate. A liberal from Mid-west pairing up with a moderate from deep south can be a winning ticket. Harold Ford Jr. reminded me a bit of Al Gore: smart, articulate, cool and passionate. I see him occasionally on MSNBC. He always maintains his composure on tough questions. It’s reported that in November 2005, when Ohio Republican Congresswoman Jean Schmidt implied that Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha was a "coward" in response to Murtha's proposal for a redeployment of American forces in Iraq, Ford charged across the House floor to the Republican side during the resulting uproar in the chamber, shouting "Say it to Murtha!" while waving his finger at Schmidt. He was engaged last year, disappointing many ladies. But he looks very happy these days despite being a skilled politican without holding any serious office.

He is a moderate and his voting record is too conservative for me. But he will be a perfect fit as a running mate for Obama. Hopefully he will help to win Tennessee.

Meaning of Life

I'm obsessed with this question. Sometimes I ask Yang for fun. She always replies that she would slap me, just like a Zen master responding to a stubborn pupil.

I might have met a couple of true Zen masters lately. Some responses that I got recently when I asked the question are:

• No – Just one word, no explanation.
  
• I got slapped repeatedly until I have to run away.
  
• Take a bath- what does that mean
  
• Flip over
  
• Stupid
  
• I cannot see
  

These were the answers given by my sons 4 year old and 3 year old. This has been fun for them, being chased by me asking this silly question. But I might be closer to understand the meaning of life after this experience anyway.

The long car pool line

I noticed a sudden change of my commute routine this week: I have a more predictable morning drive to work nowadays.

I drive from East Bay to Redwood Shores every day. Typically I pick up two commuters from a casual car pool staging area, and get on I-80's car pool lane and avoid the Bay Bridge toll booth. Several months ago a typical situation is that the cars waited in a line in the staging area for commuters. The wait time ranges from five to ten minutes, sometimes fifteen minutes. The situation is reversed. Cars don't have to wait; people wait in line now.

The highways are still crowded with cars. But I do notice a few traffic congestions along my commute route. The traffic slows down a couple times along I-80 and 101, but it doesn't slow to stop and go anymore.

Is this the result of high gas price and slower economy?

Save Water

California declared statewide drought a few days ago. We received several letter from our water company on the rules during the drought period. We are required to save water usage by 10-15%. If we use the same amount of water, then we'll pay about 20% more, but if we save 15% water usage, our water bill will remain about the same.

We are also prohibited to waste water. If we violate the rules, there will be fines, water flow restrictions or cut of water service. Some rules are:

• Use water for decorative ponds, fountains.
  
• Washing cars.
  
• Washing sidewalks, patios.
  
• Irrigating outdoors on consecutive days.
  

Our water usage has been low in general. But we have about 20 trees, about 10 tomato plants and several other vegetables. We need to water the vegetable plants every day. We have been recycling kitchen water to water the garden. We will just have to save more. I fixed two toilet leaks recently. This should help to cut down the water.

The water company even recommends everybody to flush toilet less often. I guess California is serious about the drought!

Brothers

Oliver and Victor were close before the Hawaii trip. They become inseparable now. They play together, quarrel with each other, and make trouble together all the time. Oliver had been repeating everything coming from Victor’s mouth. In this way Oliver is following Victor’s lead on many activities, whether it’s going to the garden to play or running around the house. They are actually communicating now with their limited vocabulary.

This evening we were in Victor’s room. While I was sitting on his bed before my evening conference call, both of them charged at me and let me push them to the ground. This simple activity created so much fun for both. They kept doing this for at least ten minutes. At the end, both didn’t want to stop and ended up crying. This is their daily routine. Different each day but predictable outcome. It's so much fun for everybody.

Oahu 1

Our extended family went to vacation in Oahu last week. We treated Mom and Dad for this vacation. The planning took some major effort from Yang. She put together my miles from AA and United to get enough tickets to Honolulu. The trickiest part is to figure out the ride to the San Francisco airport. We tried to book the shuttle van to take us there, but the timing was bad. We also tried to find out BART, again there was no BART to the airport on Saturday morning. Finally we decided to drive and park near the airport. We packed six people in my mid-size car. Mom had to crawl in front of the backseat the whole time. But it worked.

The day that we arrived in Honolulu, Yang had a medical emergency and needed to see a doctor. Fortunately Kiser has several local hospitals near Honolulu. We called the hospital and rushed there after unpacking in the hotel. Yang could not be too active for the duration of the vacation. This limited our activity options and made the vacation more relaxing.

Honolulu had some unimpressive Chinese restaurants. We had Dim Sum in the first day but the food was no way near the quality of the Bay Area Chinese restaurant. The shrimp dumplings were dry and had no taste. I could have made better ones.

The living cost of Honolulu must be very high. Yang and I went to Safeway, a supermarket chain that has stores in California, to buy some vegetable. We were shocked at the price tag. Many vegetable and fruit are twice or three times as expensive as the same item in the Bay Area. For example, broccoli sells for three dollars per pound. Green onion is $1.5 a bunch.