Random Musings and Nicknacks

Venice Beach

Getting out of LA was nowhere near as simple as one might expect. First off there was the problem of buying gas for the rental car. I drove into a nice looking gas station, swiped my credit card, and it asked to authorize a 75c charge – weird, but I thought OK, said yes, and it asked me for a PIN. I don’t have a PIN for my credit card so I went inside and asked, and was told that they only took cash or bank card. I told the attendant I would pay cash then, and she agreed, and reset the pump. I walked back outside, pushed the cash option, and was told I had to go inside (where I had just been, saying I would pay cash), and prepay. Dumfounded, wondering why she let me walk back out without mentioning this, I said “F*** this place” drove to the station across the street which took credit cards, and swiped my card.

It asked for a zipcode – not a trivial question for a Canuck, and I didn’t see letters on the keypad.
(more…)

Grand view over LA – I’m curious if we got lucky, or if the skies are clearer?

Sunday we woke up, barely.

After breakfast we went to Venice Beach – Ling and Tim weren’t sure about going to a beach, but I insisted. This is *the* crazy beach in LA. The one you see in the movies that want to show the young innocent person arriving in LA shocked by how decadent and weird it is. I was really curious – I had looked it up on Trip Adivsor and the reviews were split between “Must see” and something along the lines of “I’m from the mid-west, and while I think I’m relatively forward thinking, this was disgusting and a display of everything that we teach our kids not to do. Nobody should go there”.

How could I resist?

It didn’t disappoint.
(more…)

You can’t get more “LA” than this!

Here we were in LA. Moderately rested, and rather suddenly I must admit (the Monday work conversations were interesting – “What did you do on the weekend?” – “Flew to LA” – “Huh?”

We got up the next morning, and immediately hit google to figure out what we were supposed to do now that we were here. Yes, that was another thing we had not gotten around to yet. The majors: Disneyland, Six Flags, Universal Studios, were out – none of us are rollercoaster people, and we didn’t really have the time. So we narrowed down a shortlist, and as proper practitioners of Agile project management, categorized them into the must-haves, nice to haves, want to haves, and if we have times.
(more…)

Walking over some of the most famous people in the world

The idea came about on Tuesday: Ling’s sister Lu Yuen was going to be in Los Angeles (she was touring the US on vacation), and maybe we could drive down there for the weekend and visit her. A quick check of the driving distance killed that idea – it was way farther than i remembered. On a whim I decided to look up plane tickets and discovered that not only did we have enough points to get us all down there for free (plus taxes), but when you put it together with a rental car, it would cost less than the gas to drive there and back. Even the timing was perfect – we would fly out Friday at 6:00, and fly back Sunday at 9:00 – so we wouldn’t have to miss work, and we would get two full days in LA! Yeah baby. So we booked the flight (there were four seats left), and forgot about it [1]. Thursday night I remembered that it would be a good idea to book a hotel and a car as well.
(more…)

The story is written, and it is coming. I just need to do some editing. This is a teaser

I got up very early this morning, excited about checking my mom out of the hospital. The doctor in charge has agreed to release my mom from the hospital after Uncle Dong’s visit. However, I still want to confirm if this is the case with other doctors. I had the taxi booked; the driver was the one who took Uncle Dong back to ShuCheng yesterday. He was to pick me up at the hotel around 9:00 am. In the morning, decided that I wanted to get in the hospital earlier. I called the driver around 7:00am to see if he could meet me around 8:00 am. He happily agreed.

When we arrived in the hospital, my mom had everything packed already. She was sitting at the bed waiting – I could see the light in her eyes even though she looked calm and indifferent. She told me that the doctors and nurses have already confirmed that they are preparing the files for her checkout – what a relief!!!

Monday is the busiest day of a week in a typical chinese hospital; doctors usually gather together in Monday morning to discuss the critical cases they had in the previous week and then they will visit every room to check the patients there. It took us 3 hours waiting and finally we got out of the hospital around 11:00 am. This is usually the time for my mom having lunch. I suggested stopping somewhere for lunch – my mom rejected the idea. She insisted having lunch at home. I managed to convince her to have a banana. After all, It is an hour and a half drive; I really don’t want her to starve.

The trip went smoothly. I have to give the credit to the driver: he drove the car carefully and I didn’t have many heart attacks – we arrived in ShuCheng around 12:30 pm and the lunch was on the table already.

Now my goal is to survive the next 5 days in ShuCheng without mom having any relapse.

My plan is to have my mom checked out of the hospital tomorrow (May 17): her condition is stable enough now to apply medication from home. The doctors also believe that she recovered well. They keep telling me that she can be out of the hospital in a few days. Don’t fall into a trap here – if you are told that something is going to happen in a few days here, it actually can take place in a few weeks or months before you realize what that means. My job here is to make sure that a few days is equal to “Monday May 17, 2010″.

(more…)

I successfully attended the meeting through Skype this morning and I felt sooooooo great! I said hi to my colleagues via Skype as well; this was definitely a memorable experience in my life. With everything else going on here, the energy and excitement I felt through the meeting surely boosted my spirit.

(more…)

I have to think really hard to remember what happened on May 14. The confusion with dates never went away.

I felt exhausted in the morning after more than 8 hours of remote login to work. There was an all hands staff meeting scheduled on Friday (Vancouver time) to celebrate the acquisition of Bycast.

(more…)

Today is the forth day in Hefei – It felt so long ago and it felt that I have been in the city forever. I went to the hospital this morning for a short visit. I need to be back before noon. Today is the check-out day and I have to move to Holiday Inn Hefei. I only booked 3 days with Hilton Hefei before I left Vancouver. My original plan was to extend the stay if needed; however, my plan was aborted – the city is hosting the national sports competition event and Hilton was sold out after I arrived.

(more…)