My Thoughs on IOC's Announcement

Neither baseball nor softball will be included in the programme for the 2016 Olympic Games as the 15 members of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Executive Board decided Thursday at a meeting in Berlin. One of the seven sports in contention for the 2016 Games, baseball and softball were passed over in favor of golf and rugby as the list of possible additions was narrowed down to a final two candidates.

It's indeed a sad day for people who enjoy these two sports like I do. Though I wouldn't say it's a total surprise. With a sport that is seemingly dominated by Asian countries and USA, judged by a 15 member committee who has no representatives from any of these countries, you do the odds. What bothered me the most was not the fact that these two sports got excluded, but the reason they were given.

IOC said that the sport should help with gender balance of athletes. Baseball is a male sport, fast pitch softball is a female sports. Each of them introduce at least 15 players of each team. I've seen female golfers, but I don't remember seeing female rugby players. I seriously doubt these two (golf and rugby sevens) could do a better job than softball / baseball on this matter.

IOC said that the sport should be globally growing. Baseball has been strong and has kept on growing. The only area they are a bit weak is Europe. Softball has grown in over 130 countries and is still growing. Europe also has their own tournaments in softball. Golf has been a somewhat elite game, and rugby!? I know some countries are big in rugby but I don't think it grows nearly as much compared to baseball and softball. Even not talking about golf and rugby. If this is a valid reason, why are weight-lifting and other never-heard-of-it-outside-Olympics sports still in it?

IOC said that the players should be the best in the game. I know MLB has concerns on sending their aces to Olympics. But aren't the players of softball teams the best their countries can offer?

IOC said that the history of the game should be clean. I feel sorry for baseball on this matter. But softball has been one of the sports that has no reported positive drug test in its history. You cannot ask anything cleaner than that.

IOC said that the sports cannot favor certain country. USA has not been dominating in baseball. As for softball, USA did dominated 3 Olympics, but Japan got the last one in Beijing, isn't it? Netherlands, Italy, and some other European countries are also strong. USA just has a better overall system and many girls growing up playing it. Should they be punished for trying too hard? If this is a valid reason, why are gymnastic, diving, and other items dominated by China and Russia still in it?

IOC said that the sports should introduce more "value". What more value do golf and rugby introduce? For golf, I can understand that it probably introduces more money from sponsoring companies. What more value does rugby introduce?

It is a sad day for baseball and softball. On top of that, guitar legend Les Paul passed away at the age of 94.

Gilroy Garlic Festival 2009

DSC_3646
Originally uploaded by Andrew Lan

Every year around the end of July, Gilroy hosts the Garlic Festival. This is the third time I've been there and it was quite entertaining and fun.

I like the food related festivals in summer in addition to the Art & Wine ones. The Art & Wine is held in many cities in the Bay Area throughout the summer and frankly speaking, all of them are quite similar and the Foster City one is one of the biggest. The specialty festivals, like Gilroy's Garlic Festival, is more unique and more fun.

In Taiwan, every city has its own famous food. You can buy a lot of it and every vendor claims to be the original. It's not like that in the United States. You don't see that on a daily basis. But once or twice a year, there will be festivals held for that specialty for the area. For example, Lobster Festivals in Maine, Oyster Festivals in San Francisco and Atlanta, Chocolate Festival in San Francisco, Mustard Festival in Napa Valley (not wine, surprisingly), and of course the Garlic Festival in Gilroy.

This kind of festivals usually come with lots of food stands, shows, and the theme food oriented cook off contests. In the Garlic Festival, the garlic flavor ice cream is a hit. It's basically a vanilla ice cream with added garlic flavor. It is quite mild, but with clear kick of garlic flavor in the end. In addition to that, there are also tons of other food stands, garlic sausages, garlic shrimp, garlic chicken, garlic bbq, garlic dip, etc.

There are usually performance as well. They are all local artists or performing groups playing on 4 different stages in the festival. It's lots of entertainments. I like the belly dancers and country singers the best. It's quite relaxing and is a good way to spend a day with family.

They also sell garlics in the festival. My friends told me that their garlics are so good that they are on a different level than your everyday supermarket garlics, especially now many garlics are plain made in China weird stuffs. I've never actually bought any before but this time I determined to give it a try. I am really glad that I did.

I bought 3 pounds of garlics for $3.00. You can feel the different the moment you remove the cloves. The cloves are actually juicy. You don't see that too often in the supermarket ones, which are usually a bit too dry. I diced it up and mixed with soy sauce for my dumplings and it made the sauce a bit sticky and lots lots of flavors. I've tried several other dishes and all of them are quite different from my usual cooking. I am a believer now.

Next time you visit US, check out whether there are any specialty festivals going on. You would have a good time there.

Corruption~~~

The last time I had a new phone was about more than 5 years ago. It was because I decided to change to the family plan to give Abby a kid's phone so that I could keep in touch with her. The detail was a long story that I'd rather not getting into.

Anyway, whenever people asked me what kind of phone I would want to get, my answer has always been the same, "a simple one that does nothing but calling." I rarely used cell phone since I don't have family here and I keep in touch with most of my friends online. The browser before the smart-phone era was very crappy, you couldn't see a thing from that tiny screen. Texting was also painful with the number buttons. So, I just didn't see the needs to have those fancy functions and I kind of thinking all those people walking around looking at their smartphone screens are corrupted by the modern technology.

It seems to be my turn. After using Facebook and Twitter for a while, I decided to get a smart phone. (Yeah, I am weak like that) Apple's iPhone 3Gs was my choice. As a phone, it's just okay, nothing special. As a mobile device, I'd say that I enjoy it every single day since its arrival. There are things that don't make much sense on the computer, such as Twitter, but on a smart phone it makes a lot of sense. It opens a brand new window for me.

I am happy to be corrupted, I think...

Bad Dog~~~

Two days ago, I came home from work to wait to go to the airport to pick up my cousins. They are going to Boston to visit my auntie and is transferring in SFO so that I invited them to stay for the weekend to tour around. So, I had a couple of hours to kill. I decided to make myself a sandwich and watched the recorded KFC World Cup of Softball, USA vs Netherlands.

I pane fried some bacon, toasted some toasts, and started to make my gourmet sandwich. It was not a BLT since I didn't have tomatoes. But it was nicely stacked with dijon mustard, lettuce, ham, cheese, over-easy egg, and the juicy bacon. I put it on the coffee table, turned on the TV and went to my bedroom to change to something more comfortable.

When I came back to the living room, I saw my maltese Oreo dragged 2 stripes out of the 4 bacon and cheeses on the floor and really enjoyed them. When he saw me staring at him, he tried even harder to swallow in the 2nd one and then went to the corner, sit down and looked at me. Real sharp, Oreo, well done.

Facts or Opinions

Sometimes, Abby gets homework assignments called "Facts or Opinions". It usually comes with some reading materials - news articles, current event articles, or something from Time for Kids. There would be a set of sentences regarding things mentioned in the reading materials. The assignments are to determine whether each sentence being a "fact" or an "opinion". It is quite simple to us grown-ups, but for kids it could be challenging. However, I like this assignment because I think it is important, no matter how much imagination the kids are, to be able to tell facts from opinions.

The problem in Taiwan today, in my perspective, is that there are way too many opinions and only few facts on almost every single subjects. The politicians try to use opinions to influence people and have them overlook the facts. They should be ashamed of themselves. I am surprised (not really) that some of the well educated people, my relatives included, are so narrow minded and blinded to buy those opinionated craps. If Taiwan really wants to improve and progress to be a mature society, people have to judge things on more facts and less opinions.

Foster City Force - Burlingame Billie Sue Tournament

Foster City Force - Burlingame Tournament
Originally uploaded by Andrew Lan

During the father's day weekend, Foster City's 8U Girl's Softball Team went to Burlingame to play the Billie Sue Tournament. It was a nice and sunny weekend. For us fathers, it was an entertaining and fun father's day.

This was the last tournament this summer for the girls in the team. Many of them, including Abby, will move up to the 10U division after the summer. So that this would be their last 8U games too. Moving from 8U to 10U is a big change. The ball gets harder, no more coach feeding, there will be stealing, walk, and all kinds of strategies. It is much more fun for girls who really enjoy the game, but probably would be a big shocker for some.

The Burlingame tournament went well. The girls had some really nice plays that made us grown-ups really proud. Our girls were also the only team among the 12 participating teams that got a "Team Spirit Award" trophies, the one with a yellow ball on top, for having the best positive attitude and good sportsmanship. One of the parents sent the pictures to Foster City Islander, the local news paper. Guess what, their tournament story and picture got put in the front page of the July 1st edition. As a proud parent, I of course went to pick up several copies. :)

Pump, Pump, Pump It Up!

Force's Pre-Game Cheers
Originally uploaded by Andrew Lan

There are many differences between the boys' sports and the girls' sports. The biggest one would have to be the cheers. In girls' sports, whether it's soccer, softball or something else, you see them do a lot of cheering during the game. Sometimes I wonder whether they use more energy for that, or for the game.

There are many different cheers. Some are ridiculously funny. We know that we've seen too many of our children's game when we involunteerly humming those chants. I've never seen any boys' team do any cheerings, ever.

The picture is what the girls did for cheer right before last Sunday morning game. I didn't have a camcorder, but I found a clip on Youtube with the same chanting. Enjoy. :)

Foster City Force - Redwood City Tournament

Foster City 8U Softball Team "Force" finished our Redwood City tournament over the last weekend. We played 4 games during the series. Other than the game with Redwood City Wicked, in which the experience and skill gap was a bit obvious, other 3 games were really fun and interesting. The girls had a lot of fun and so did many of the parents.

Abby had not been very focused during the games since the San Mateo tournament. So, I decided to bribe her with some rewards for good performance. Man, the difference was significant. On Sunday's game, she struck out one player, gave 2 trikes to 2 other players before giving to their coach pitcher with 4 balls. She caught the infield fly as a pitcher and almost got a foul tip as the catcher. Her batting was also more aggressive. I guess a pro doesn't do things for free. Hahaha.

It was a good tournament and should get the girls ready for the upcoming Burlingame tournament in the father's day weekend (6/19 - 6/21), in which they'll play 5 games in 2 days. As a father, I'd just enjoy some bbq on the sideline.

Wicked Birthday

Wednesday was my birthday, I took Abby to San Francisco to see Wicked - the Musical.  It was quite a show.  I would say it was probably the most entertaining one I've seen, even though I have been to only four other musical performances.  It was a very satisfying evening.

We took BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to San Francisco so that we wouldn't need to worry about the parking.  Even though it took twice as long to get there, but we got to really chat and play a bit on the way.  The station exit was right in front of the theatre, very convenient.

There were quite a few kids, I'd say about 10% of the audiences were children.  Abby was the only one wore a blue check dress and two pig tails.  Even though not quite the same as what Dorothy wore, but close enough.  She even wore her sparkling shoes.

On the way back, Abby said, "dad, thank you for taking me to the show.  Wicked was awesome!"  Believe or not, this is the first time ever she thanks me for taking her to any performance and no need to remind her to appreciate it.  I guess she was really entertained.

I am in the middle of the book and I enjoy it a lot.  The musical is quite different from the book in many details.  I am not a fan of the happy ending (sort of) in the end of the musical, which I know is different from the novel.  Other than that, I had a blast.  Teal Wicks (what a last name) did a great job as Elphaba, and Kendra Kassebaum was just hilarious as Galinda.  Teal has such a strong and powerful voice, which carries the show beautifully.  Kendra's voice has an interesting "perk" that suits the character quite well too.  In my opinion, Kendra has a similar style, and look, as Goldie Hawn.  She puts a natural and funny goofiness on the Galinda character that stands her out from other Galinda actresses.  It was a good story but a bit confusing to kids, I guess.  Abby asked a lot of questions for the things that are "different" from what the Wizard of Oz described.  I think that's great because she doesn't just believe everything in the book anymore and start to use her brain.  :)

I had a good time and am officially one year older now...

Mobile Suit Gundam

For most fans of giant robots, Mobile Suit Gundam is definitely one of the must-seen series. Robot fans are pretty series about this series. It's setting and the details of the merchandise has been phenomenal. It's like the robot world's Star Trek.

This year is the 30th anniversary of this series. What's better to celebrate it than building a life size Gundam? That's exactly what they did in Japan - a scale 1:1 statue for the RX-78 Gundam. The details of this construction are unbelieveable and when it stands in the rural Japan, it just looks like it's gonna move for real.

There are more photos can be found in the Mainichi Daily News site. I wish that I were in Japan right now...

Foster City Force - San Mateo Tournament

Foster City - Force
Originally uploaded by Andrew Lan

Foster City's 8U Softball Tournament Team "Force" has finished the San Mateo tournament over the weekend. It was the first of the three tournaments that our girls would play this summer. We will have the Redwood City one this weekend and the Burlingame one the weekend after.

Our girls did well in the San Mateo games. The result was W1 L3, but there were many good plays throughout the tournaments. For a team that was assembled 10 days before the games, we were happy with the result. The girls danced and cheered in the dugout all the time. Sometimes I wonder whether they used more energy in the dugout than on the field. They seemed to have a lot of fun though. Look at those smiles. :)

Lost & Found

Over the weekend, Abby had the softball tournament in San Mateo. In the 8U division, Foster City sent a team "Force" to participate. At this age group, even though no elimination rules, the competition is still intense. For a team that was put together 10 days before the tournament, our result were W1 L3. Two of the lost games were quite close.

Over all I think they did well and the most important, they the girls had a lot of fun, probably a bit too much fun. The girls did a lot of cheering, dancing and playing in the dugout. I cannot help wonder whether they used most of their energy in the dugout instead of on the field.

Anyway, we had a game (game 3) at 5:00pm Saturday evening. There was another game within 10 minutes after our game ended. So, we had to clean up the area and leave after the game. I helped the girls pack and make sure they got all their equipments.

Sunday morning around 9:00am, when we were about to head to our last game, I popped the trunk to put Abby's gear in and realized something was missing. I stood there thinking and suddenly, I realized that I left my camera bags and gears in the field the evening before. It has all my photography gears in it with estimated value over $5K. My face wouldn't look too good because I could see that Abby got worried and thought she did something wrong. Poor thing.

I rushed to the field and found the tournament staffs, asked them where the lost & found was. They asked me what I was looking for. I told them that I forgot my camera bag the day before. They asked me to describe it. I gave them a detail description of the bag. They smiled and told me, "the lost & found is across the street next to the big field. by the way you have a good camera."

I was really surprised that it didn't get lost. It gives me hope for the humanity though. :)

What A Season

We had our last game of the softball season on Wednesday. The Panthers were facing our arch rival, the Jaguars. The girls were on fire during the last game. In this age group, the inning ends when the defense team makes three outs on the field, or when the offense team bats the entire rotation. Our girls managed to make 3 outs in each of the first two innings, and 5 outs (we kept on going since it was the last inning of the season, literally) in the last one. The girls also did a great job batting. Almost everyone had some singles, and some managed to get pretty solid doubles and even triples. As a (assist) coach, I cannot feel more proud.

Abby also did a good job as the pitcher in the 2nd inning. Thanks to the help of our unofficial pitching coach Darryl, our pitchers had the most well developed mechanics among all the 8U teams. Abby had some consistancy issues that she needed to work on. But she fired some pretty decent strikes too. Even though she had only about 30% strikes (if there was an umpire), she managed to pitch about 75% of the ball over the home plate line. The practice really paid off. Abby, you should be proud.

I am glad that I signed up to help coach the team. It was a lot of fun and all the girls were such a joy to work with. There are so much more that I wish I could have done, but I am proud of them as is.

Watching the girls enjoy activities such as softball and soccer makes me feel that I make the right decision staying in United States instead of going back to Taiwan. I guess in a way it is a self compensation for what I wanted to do as a child but couldn't because we didn't really have the environments. I still remember going to the neighborhood Tai-Ho Elementary with some of my classmates to have pretend baseball games. We usually didn't have enough gloves and would be lucky to have 2 bats. It was still a lot of fun even though we usually could only get 5 - 8 kids to do some pseudo plays. Seeing that Abby can enjoy the softball as it should be, with well maintained fields, sufficient equipments, and enough friends, I cannot help feel part of my childhood void fullfilled in some way.

The spring season is over, but Abby's softball is not. Abby signed up for the Foster City Force, the Foster City 8U softball tournament team. We will have 3 tournaments to play before the summer ends. This weekend, we will play at the San Mateo tournament, next weekend at the Redwood City tournament. The week after the next, which is the father's day weekend, we'd play at the Billie Sue tournament in Burlingame. The girls get pretty cool blue uniform this year instead of the teal color one. They are also more ready this year than the last year, which we only had less than 10 days to recruit and be ready. I wish Abby and the team can have lots of fun in the tournaments.

Art & Wine Festival

Some things get better with age - including art and wine and beautiful Foster City. And the best way to enjoy art, wine and Foster City is to attend the Arts & Wine Festival. It is one of the events that I look forward to every year in the last weekend in May. It contains art booths, wine and beer booths, dozens of food booths and other goodies. It also has live performance from local music groups, local schools and organizations. Besides all these, it usually comes with a carnival, which other cities' Art & Wine doesn't have. It is a traditional "start of summer" event in Foster City.

I go there every year since I moved to California in 2000.  Sometimes, I would also buy a souvenir wine glass or a beer mug.  Unfortunately, I broke the 2001's and missed 2006 & 2007.  2006 and 2007 are two of my most miserable years so I guess I just forgot to get the glasses.  :)  It's a good family event.  Abby loves the carnival ride.  Since she behaves well these days, I think I'd reward her an unlimited rides wrist band for the carnival on Saturday.

Little Guys In, Big Guys Out

I went to see Terminator Salvation over the weekend.  It was a good entertainment but I didn't think the story was strong enough to successfully reboot this franchise.  Without Governator Arnold, this is not much difference from the Transformers.

In an CNN interview, Arnold Schwarzenegger talked about his movie career.  He mentioned that when he tried to get into the movie industry and attempted to use body-building as the mean to get there, his agent told me that he stood no chance.  His agent told him, "Your body is outdated, it's for movies about 20 years late.  The actors now are like Dustin Hoffman, Woody Allen.  The little guys are in, the big guys are out."  Hahaha...  I like Arnold's positive and interesting personality.  He made some bad decisions as a politician, cutting the education funding to be one of them, but over all I think he still brought good things to California.  My impression of his movies when I was a child was that he always had a very clear victory and nobody could touch him.  Compared to Sylvester Stallone, who always got badly beaten till the very end.  However, I have to say that my favorite action movie series would have to be Rambo, so hardcore, so simple, and so much fun.

Talking about rebooting a franchise, Star Trek is the clear winner by a margin.  There is just no comparison.  Many consider the 11th Star Trek movie one of the best sequel these years, even better than Batman Begins.  I would agree with this statement.  Even though I love both series a lot, Batman Begins does seem a bit too slow paced here and there.  As for Star Trek, other than the 3 minutes car chasing scene of the young Kirk that I think is a bit irrelevant, the rest of the movie is just so smooth and detailed with good acting and visuals.  I still feel quite stunned by how big difference it makes to the old crappy t-shirt uniform by simply changing the texture of the materials and the adjustment of tightness.  Love it!

Tooth Fairy

Last night, after putting Abby to bed at 10 o'clock, I did my evening routine: walking the dog, cleaning up, taking a shower, then relaxing on sofa watching tv and reading some book.  Around 11-ish, suddenly Abby's bedroom door opened and she came out with a big smile on her face.

Before I said anything, she reached out her hand and said, "Lookie!"  On her hand is a baby canine, with blood on it.  I said to myself, "what the hell..."  She said, "this loose tooth bothers me sleeping so I decide to take it out."  Then comes the question I tried to avoid, "how much do you think the tooth fairy would leave for this tooth?"

I told Abby to go rinse her mouth.  I took a peek into my wallet, only $20 bills in it.  I told her, "I don't know.  Why don't you go to bed first and I'll clean the tooth up a little so that you can leave it under your pillow tomorrow.  I doubt the tooth fairy would want a bloody tooth."  She nodded and agreed with me, then headed to bed once again.

Frankly, I don't quite get the tooth fairy concept.  When I was a child, if we lost the teeth in the lower jaw, we threw it up to the rooftop; if we lost the teeth in the upper jaw, we threw it on the ground.  That's pretty much it.  Redeem baby teeth for money was a totally new concept after coming to United States.  It used to be a quarter or two for each teeth.  But I guess the value gets increased with the inflation and economy as well.  Now it seems to be in the range of $1 to $20, depends on the area and depends on which tooth.  Crazy if you ask me.

I actually thought about getting Abby one of those cute teeth boxes to put the baby teeth.  I gave up the idea since Abby lost some before coming to California.  Since it cannot be a completed collection, might as well sell it to the tooth fairy.

How much does Abby's tooth worth?  Well, I cannot tell you.  All I know is that I need to buy something in cash today to break that twenty.

How Many IMs Are You?

Many people have multiple instant messenger accounts on different platforms.  Some people go from simple to complex, some the other way around.  What kind are you?

I consider myself not an enthusiastic but sort of an old-bone when it comes to messengers. 

I remembered starting to use ICQ in mid 90's.  My ICQ# is in early 6 digits, though I haven't used it in years, I am surprised that it is still active.  I stopped using ICQ because back then it didn't store the contact list on the server, therefore when you change a machine.  Also because of the increasing amount of spam, I decided that's enough for me.

Yahoo! Messenger was a pleasant little thing.  It used to be pretty light weight and easy to use.  MSN came out roughly the same time, but until recently it didn't offer the offline messages.  Therefore YIM had my favor, besides, most of my friends were on Yahoo! around that time.  Things changed after I graduated and started to work.  For some reason, MSN seemed more compatible with the firewall in the office.  Not sure whether it's because of the same reason, but my friends started to jump ship to MSN.  Eventually I had no choice but to comply.

For a while, the concept of an universal platform for IMs were quite popular.  I worked on a project similar to Trillian when I went to graduate school.  I didn't stay on it for long because I realized soon that I am a person who adores simplicity and purity.  The all-in-one deal sounds good but it's the different characteristics in each IMs that make them interesting and special.

Later on, I also used AIM, Skype, Google Talk, Pidgin and then Apple's iChat.  I have pretty good experience with most of them except AIM.  I just simply don't find it that friendly.  I try it out just to see what's the big fuss of AOL.

These days, I mainly use MSN and Google, simply because they don't seem to have much issues with my office's firewall.  I still hop on other IMs from time to time at home to keep in touch with family and friends.  I guess in some way it is like kung-fu - when you first start, you like to learn more styles; after a while you want to just extract the essence and stick to the styles that are simple and get the jobs done well.  Meh, that makes me think of the Apple vs PC commercials.  Have I mentioned that I am a very easily distracted person... :P

Abby's Poem - Part 2

1. Abby's Acrostic Poem

Awesome!

Blue is her favorite color!

Yay for her!

Great at softball!

Allergic to onion!

I like ice cream!

Lollipops are tasty to her!

2. Oreo

Oreo the dog,

loves me.

Oreo the hamster,

loves his food.

Oreo the cat,

loves you.

Oreo can be...

any animal's name.

3. Nature

I saw a bird in a tree,

it turned around looked at me.

In the forest I saw a bear,

I was scared because it turned and saw me.

I helped a snail get across the street

because it almost got killed

I LOVE NATURE!

~~ Abygail

Abby's Poem

~~~ Dad ~~~

Dad is the star

Shining in my heart.

Dads are the people

Who work the most.

Dad is the one

Who always makes me breakfast.

~ Abygail

The Big Wave

Abby's school had a "No TV Challenge" during the Literature Week about a month ago.  To participate it, the students need to try to last a whole week without television.  The family also should try not to watch any TV programs in front of the students.  If the students successfully accomplish it, the parents would sign a form to certify it and the students would be rewarded with a book of their choice.

The schools in United States encourage students to read much more than I could remember when I grew up in Taiwan.  Instead of teaching the students to understand the very details of the meanings of the literatures, they encourage the kids to just read more.  They teach the kids how to choose interesting books and the books that fits their reading level and skills.  I wish I had that kind of environment back then.

Anyway, Abby chose this book called The Big Wave, written by Pearl S. Buck.   It was a famous story of a Japanese boy who must face life after escaping the tidal wave destruction of his family and village.  The book won 1948's Children's Book Award of Child Study Association.  It's an interesting story, but might be a bit too cliche for people who grows up in Asia since we have heard too many stories about how people fight against the nature and always live positively.  Pearl S. Buck also won the Pulitzer Prize for the novel The Good Earth, and in 1938 received the Nobel Prize for literature.

In the book, Abby put a sticker in it and gave the book to me.  Thanks girl.

A Bald Guy from Venice...

Every Wednesday, Abby has music / recorder class in the school.  It is taught by a volunteering parent of one of her classmate.  Abby has developed interests in music and instruments from it and I feel graceful for that.  It's kind of ironic that even though California is one of the higher income states in America, its education funding per child is one of the lowest country-wide.  Luckily through series of fundraising and volunteering, the kids can still have good exposure to different school activities.

Yesterday, during dinner, Abby told me that they learned a piece music about the swans.  I asked her if that's Swan Lake, she said she was not sure.  So I hummed some of the melody and she said, "yeah yeah, it was written by someone with beard."  I told her that that his name is Tchaikovsky, and she has heard of his other works before.  Abby's eyes were wide open and said, "no way!"  I told her it was the Nutcrackers and she was really excited.

Then, out of nowhere, Abby told me that they also listened music written by a bald guy born in Venice but she couldn't remember anything else.  I told her that she would need to give me more hints.  She thought about it and told me that the only things she could remember are something to do with birds, flowers, thunders, etc.  I asked her whether it was the Four Seasons by Vivaldi.  Then I hummed the melody of Spring to her.  She said, "yeah, yeah, that's the guy!"

A bald guy from Venice...  Hahaha...  I am sorry, Vivaldi.

Game Night

Saturday evening, my friend Craig and his wife came to visit us to return my Yankees baseball cap that I left in their car a couple of weeks ago.  Hope that's not the cause of the less than satisfying performance of Yankees these days.

When they arrived, Craig mentioned that they went to the Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival.  Though the entertainments in the festival was fun, they were not impressed with the food served there and were quite hungry.  So, I decided to take them out to dinner at one of my favorite place in San Mateo - Santa Ramen, to satisfy their Japanese food craving.

When I first came to California in 2000, I asked some of my Japanese colleagues and friends about the place to have good Japanese ramen.  Every single one of them told me that Santa Ramen was the place to be.  They said, "even though it is still a bit different, but it's as authentic as it can be in the bay area."  Santa was a very small restaurant on 8th St in San Mateo and was always crowded.  They closed whenever they ran out of broth, which was usually before 9pm.  They served only ramen as the entrees, which came in three choices of broth and several choices of toppings.  The food quality was, and is still superb and satisfying.  My favorite one is the pork flavor broth with stewed pork topping.  The broth is rich but not greasy, the stewed pork is fork tender, sweet and juicy.  Usually I'll also enjoy the side of karrage or grilled squid.  The only problem I have with Santa is the waiting.  The restaurant was so small that you had to wait on the street most of the time.  Luckily that they moved to a bigger location in a local plaza about 2 years ago, which provided more convenient parking and more seats.

We had three satisfying bowls of ramen.  Mine was pork flavor with stewed pork.  It was also the last bowl of stewed pork they had left that day, so I shared half of the meat with my friends.  Craig and his wife went for the basic.  As for the rice bucket Abby, as usual, a simple bowl of steamed rice plus some karrage would do just fine for her.

After dinner, we went back to my place and played some games.  Abby got a Yahtzee set on her birthday and she liked it.  We've played a couple of times before.  Abby likes it because it is one of the few games that she actually has a decent chance to win fair and square.  Yahtzee is a dice game with minimum, but not none, strategy.  I've seen people playing it on TV shows, mostly in the bar scene.  But I've never tried it until Abby got the set.  It was easy and fun.  Abby once got 4 Yahtzee's in a game, which got her all pumped up and excited.  But not this time.  :P

After a game of Yahtzee, we moved onto Blokus, the game that Craig introduced to us a while ago.  Craig has a set of Blokus Trigon with triangle bricks, ours is the classic one with square bricks.  The games were fun and also proved a point - it's as challenging playing against an expert as playing against a rookie.  Abby is like a bad neighbor who just interrupted your strategy with the most non-sense movement that didn't benefit herself at all.  Having her bricks getting closer gives everyone alarms, because that before you are aware of it, many of your plans would have been stopped because of that.  The unpredictability made Abby the most dangerous player in the game.  It also spiced things up quite a bit since others played a bit too nicely without her.

I like the board games and puzzles.  But they are usually not as much fun with only two players.  So, whenever there are friends visiting, we'd play a round or two.  Abby so far has been proven as a mean player in Blokus and Monopoly.  :)

Panthers' Closer

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Originally uploaded by Andrew Lan

This weekend, the girls in the softball team started to pitch for the first time this season and it was quite entertaining. In our youth softball league, the 8U (8 & under) division is considered a learning league. The coaches did most of the pitching to "feed" the balls to the batters. In the middle of the season, the players would start to pitch. It was quite interesting to see the reactions on both the pitchers and the batters. Instead of the relatively nice and safe pitches delivered by the coaches, they would face the wild and unpredictable pitches from their peers.

We had three girl pitchers for this weekend's game and Abby was the last one. She had some control problems to drive the balls to the 1st base side. Since it was a consistent error, I figured it was the mechanical issues that we can address later on. Aside from that, her pitching was quite powerful and she delivered some really mean strikes, which surprised me as well.

Abby is a quick learner and has good skills. But she doesn't like to practice much, therefore I wouldn't expect too much stability from her. Anyway, having fun is the most important thing, I suppose.

Abby is a girl that has too much in her mind and gets distracted easily. It's quite a challenge to keep her entertained and focused.  The only thing that can quiet her down is reading.  When she gets a good book on hand, she could sit there for hours.  But not anything else.  Her attention on things other than reading can hardly last over 10 minutes.

Black or White

A couple of weeks ago, Adam Lambert on American Idol sang this Michael Jackson song.  I thought he did a good job, relatively.  Even though I still enjoy MJ's version much better.  So, I told Abby about it.  Abby asked me what's this song about.  I told her that it's about how you should look the positiveness in each other and not treat people differently just because of their colors or background, etc.  Abby is all for world peace and doesn't really care much about all the racial and social class issues.  I wish her remain this way.

I went on Youtube and found her the music video for the song, of course not the extended version with the confusing cruch grapping dancing in the end.  Abby felt interested in the facial changing part in the and and asked me why they did that.  I told her that represents that people should get along regardless black or white.

Abby thought about it and asked me whether Michael Jackson is a mix like her.  Abby thought that he looks like a mix.  I told her that MJ was born an African-American and gradually grown into a Caucasian.  She said, "no way!"  I then found some pictures online to show her.  Abby's eyes were wide open.  She said, "that's amazing, how did he do that?"  I told her that's probably the miracle from God.  Hahaha...

I know, I know...  I probably shouldn't trick Abby like that, but I couldn't help it.  :P  Regardless Jacko's strange personality, he is still one of my favorite entertainer growing up.

I'm Melting

Can you believe it?  During the weekend, the daily temperature surcharged from around 75°F to 90°F.  Based on the Weather Channel, it's gonna stay that way until Wednesday.  I felt like melting here during the daytime.  Thank god that I live right on the edge of San Francisco Bay, the cool wind from the bay helped a lot as long as I kept the windows open and stayed away from the direct sunlight.

The hot weather here is just like this, even in summer.  It's usually very comfortable weather, with about 4 or 5 times a year really hot days.  Each time, it lasts for about 3 - 5 days.  Just when you almost cannot stand it anymore and want to get an air conditioner, it cools down right away.

This afternoon, Abby and I went to dip in the pool in our complex.  She was all happy and jolly.  It's been a while since she went to the pool after her bad ear infection in Pennsylvania last summer.  Abby loves water.  I've never seen someone so fearless about water even before she learned how to swim.  I don't know, I might need to feel worry about this someday.  She swam and played with other kids in the pool and had a good time.  I went to dip in the jacuzzi from time to time, and stayed under the shade on the beach chair reading books and taking naps.  I forgot to bring my iPod and some cold bottles, otherwise it would have been excellent.

Relaxing Saturday...

Abby had a sleepover at her friend Piper's place over the weekend.  It was a birthday sleepover since Abby and Piper's birthdays are 2 days apart.  However, it was also right before the spring break, therefore they had this party after the spring break.  Piper's parents are very nice and planned a lot of activities for the girls.

As a single parent, this is a rare opportunity for me to have some alone time.  I planned a lot of things to do during Abby's absence, but in the end, napping and sleeping won the battle.  Yawn...  I guess that the grown up movies and other entertainments would just have to wait for another time, maybe during summer when I have the whole month for myself.  :P

Jackie Robinson Day

Today, April 15th, is Jackie Robinson Day, probably one of the most important day in the American baseball history, and probably in all American sports and civil right movements as well.

Jackie Robinson was the first African-American Major League Baseball player of the modern era.  Before his Major League debut on April 15th, 1947 for Brooklyn Dodgers (now Los Angeles Dodgers), African-American baseball players were only allowed to play in their own league.  At the time, many white people still believed that whites and blacks shall be kept apart in many aspects in life.  Despite all the obstacles, Jackie Robinson broke the barrier and had a wonderful 10 year baseball career.

Jackie Robinson's influence isn't just in sports, but in many other aspects as well.  He and many African-American civil right activists, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, opened the doors to many color people in the future generation.  Some says, without Jackie Robinson, there probably won't be Obama.  Well, that might be a bit over exaggeratted, but you can see how influencial he is.

Major League Baseball dedicates April 15th to be Jackie Robinson Day.  To show tribute to this baseball legend who changed the baseball history forever, many teams would choose to all wear No. 42 jersey to play today's game.

Another interesting trivia is that normally, the baseball clubs are responsible for retiring numbers.  On April 15, 1997, Major League Baseball took the unusual move of retiring a number for all teams.  On the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking the major league color barrier, his number 42 was retired throughout the majors, at the order of Commissioner Bud Selig.  This meant that no future player on any major league team could wear number 42, although players wearing #42 at the time were allowed to continue with it, and of course, everyone is allowed to wear it on Jackie Robinson Day.

Go Go Stomper!

Abby and I went to a baseball game today in the Oakland Coliseum, the home of Oakland A's.  It's the first game we went to see together for the 2009 season, which turned out to be a surprisingly exciting one.  That was an excellent conclusion of Abby's 9 year old birthday.

Abby, as usual, was a flip-flopper fan whose loyalty switches according to the turn out of the game.  On our way there, she said that we shall cheer for different teams and she would pick Boston RedSox.  On the top of the 2nd inning, when RedSox's Youkilis hit a solo homerun, Abby was pretty excited.  On the bottom of the 2nd inning, when A's managed to score 5 runs, Abby turned to me and told me that she decided to cheer for the A's.  She used my phrase, "gotta support the local teams."  Yeah, right, Abby.

The only thing that she was not very happy about was that she had her softball gloves with her, but no foul balls came towards us the whole night.  Well, better luck next time, Abby.

I like to go to baseball games.  Many people go to the game to social or just to hang out with friends.  Enjoy the hotdog, garlic fries, beer, etc.  Unlike in Taiwan or in Japan, there is no organized cheering in Major League.  It's a place and time to relax and to have fun.  There are also little games during the change of the innings to entertain mainly the little fans as well as the grown-ups.  Besides, I also found girls with fan gears, whether it's the cap, the jersey, or the whole packages, quite attractive.  Something about female in athletic appearing that gives out positive energy.

Many teams have a mascot.  San Francisco Giants' is a seal named Lou Seal.  Oakland A's is an elephant named Stomper.  Abby likes Lou Seal slightly better because Lou Seal came to her softball activities before and signed her visor.

Unfortunately, Chien-Ming Wang had another bad day.  It's time for him to really put some hard work on it.  He looks just like Barry Zito last year, a Cy Young winner and the highest paid pitcher (before C.C. Sabathia this year), who could barely get one win in 2008.

California's Great America

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Originally uploaded by Andrew Lan

Abby interrupted me during my wonderful Sunday morning dream and told me that she wanted to go to Great America, a theme park in Santa Clara. It used to be Paramount's Great America, and now California's Great America. I woke up, looked at the bright sunshine outside, and told myself - why not?

The park is about 25 minute driving from our place. We applied the season pass like the last year. One thing I learned last year was that the season pass to a theme park close by is such a deal for the weekend when you often wonder what to do and where to take the kids to.

This year, Abby is tall enough to get on any ride. Last year, she suffered from the "not tall enough" syndrome and was unable to get on some rides that required the guest to be 54" or taller. I guess that she is getting taller after all, even though I cannot really tell.

Sometimes I don't really understand Abby. When it comes to games, rides, etc. Abby is quite adventurous and is really pushing the limits. But when it comes to study, learning, etc. it would take a team to convince her to try something outside the scope of what's been taught in the class.  Perhaps I just haven't found the right button to push yet.

It was a fun Sunday.  The perfect weather certainly helped a lot.

EE/CS @ Ortega Park

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Originally uploaded by Andrew Lan

The NTHU EE/CS alumni had a picnic at Ortega Park in Sunnyvale. The weather was surprisingly good, sunny with very light wind. The alumni association here is just like the clubs in NTHU, lots of population but not easy to make anything happen. We have an annually EE/CS picnic, and an annually Mei-Chu Game just like in Taiwan. The two activities are pretty much the limits of what we can attract enough attention here.

This year's picnic, we had a special guest - the NTHU chancellor, Dr. Chen. We also used this opportunity to celebrate our first Mei-Chi Game victory over 5 years. :P It was quite fun and interesting. Since this weekend was also the Easter weekend, the association also prepared the egg hunt for the kids.

Naturally, I took Abby with me. Abby enjoyed being the pack-leader since most of the kids there are younger than her. Before I knew, she had gathered 4 and 5 followers for her to boss around. I wondered whether it was because of Abby, or because of the soccer ball and tennis ball that we brought.  It's amazing how much kids can play with simply a ball or two.

For the Love of...

First of all, New York Yankees is still win-less today.  Wang had a bad day, even worse than C.C.'s.  When Wang's sinker balls don't sink, they are just medium speed fast balls.  It's ok, pick yourself up, shake it off, and do better next time, Wang.

Ok, enough baseball...

Early today, I was in the mood of listening to some music of Steve Vai, one of my favorite guitar players, whose album "Passion and Warfare" changes how I look at guitar playing forever.  I was at work, so that naturally I went to see if I could find it on Youtube.  I did, but in addition to his playing, I found the following two clips.  They are clips of a 10 year old Japanese girl, Karuka Kageyama, playing two guitar solo classic - "For the Love of God" by Steve Vai, and "Always with Me, Always with You" by Joe Satriani.

Hope you enjoy...

** For the Love of God **

** Always with Me, Always with You **

Giants & A's, Win * 2

San Francisco Giants beat Brewers today 10 - 6.  Oakland A's beat Angels 6 - 4.  It's a good day for the bay area teams.  Unfortunately, either starters were stable enough to claim the victories.

Giants' starter, Tim Lincecum, only lasted 3 innings with 78 pitches.  It was a bit disappointing.  This 24 year old Cy Young award winner is the 3rd in history to win this award in the 2nd year of his career, and the 1st year of his full season (2008).  He did a tremendous performance in the 2008 season, especially with a team of less than .500 winning ratio, he managed to score 18 wins out of Giants' total 44 victories.

Lincecum didn't try to find any excuse, he said that he just had a bad day.  But you can easily see that the Brewers were a bit overly aggressive with him, maybe just for the idea of beating a young gun.  For today's game, he said, "I'll try to take it with a grain of rice and move on."  Rice?  "Rice, salt, whatever. I'm half-Asian," Lincecum said.

Lincecum is half Filipino.

I do not plan to track game standings here.  However, since it's the opening series with the first wins from the two local teams, it doesn't hurt to mention it.

Tomorrow, Chien-Ming Wang is going to start his first game this season against Baltimore Orioles.  I wish him good luck.  After all, we came from the same place.  I am not over hyped about him like many Taiwan media.  Wang is no doubt a good player, but not a very dominating one and still has many to improve.  His performance depends a bit much on the teammate's support for the ground-outs.  I've seen his game against Oakland A's twice.  First was in 2007, a game that he didn't win nor lose.  The second was on my birthday in 2008, and that was a great game.  Wang pitched 7 innings.  There were 5 innings with first batter getting onto the base, but there were also 5 double-plays.  Let me put it this way, watching Wang's game is never relaxing.  It's exciting but nervous.

Go Panthers!

This is the 2nd year that my daughter Abby plays youth softball.  When I was a child, I always wanted to play baseball but didn't really get the chance nor have the environment.  Last year when Abby started to play, I pretty much stayed to help out in every practice.  So, this year I figure that since I am gonna spend time anyway, I might as well sign up as an assistant coach.

Playing with children is a lot of fun.  Some of the girls have never played before and have no clue regarding the rules nor the mechanics of the games.  But they learn so quickly and eagerly, which make us coaches feel that we are really doing something constructive.  You can see the progress on the weekly basis.  Everytime they have a good hit, catch a fly ball, or make a good play, we coaches are much more excited than the girls.

Last year, I got to stay on the sideline and capture the moments with my camera.  This year, I am on the field giving out instructions and cheers.  The more involvement is much more fun.  It is tiresome, but definitely worths it.

Go Panthers!

Play Ball 2009!

The baseball season 2009 for Major League Baseball begins on Monday.  As a fan, I cannot help feel excited.  I am not really following any particular teams, but just a fan of the sport itself.  I enjoy soccer, basketball, and football as well.  But for those timed sports, you pretty much can tell the result before the games end.  The fact that anything can happen in a baseball game until the last batter out is what attracts me the most.

Growing up in Taiwan, I watched a lot of manga as a child.  Many of them were baseball related.  I was not sure how much the manga contributed to me becoming a baseball fan.  But the first team I followed was Seibu Lions, and the reason was because of their logo design, which was based on the famous Kimba the White Lion anime by Osamu Tezuka.  Sometimes, our elementary school classmates would go to the neighborhood schools to play some balls, but nothing too serious.

Taiwan's CPBL was born when I was in the middle school.  I became a fan of Brother Elephants for the very same reason -- I liked their logo design.  Many people in my class were fans too.  We listend to the games on the radio, made waves and cheers even during the classes.  Those were good old days.  Unfortunately, the passioned died with the scandals surrounding the baseball environment in Taiwan.

I went to Pittsburgh in 1998, the year of the famous homerun chases between McGwire and Sosa.  I was overwhelmed by the positive energy of baseball here.  Yes, there were problems here and there, but overall the baseball was still indeed a sport in everyday American life.  I went to see three games that yeah, all of them Pirates vs Cardinals.  Out of McGwire's 70 homers, I witnessed the homer #52 and #63 in the Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

When I came to United States and tried to apply my first credit card.  I got a letter for MBNA (now part of Bank of America) regarding their MLB Preferred MasterCard.  I browsed through all the designs and chose New York Yankees in the end.  So, I guess you can say that I am sort of a Yankees fan.  I also cheer for my home team San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics now.  Choosing side is just to make the games more enjoyable.

My daughter plays youth softball and is a fan for softball and baseball as well.  We spend a lot of time in the neighborhood ball park where the Foster City Little League and Foster City Youth Softball Association play.  It's quite a pleasure watching the kids play when there is nothing complicated but the joy of the game.

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area is really good for a baseball fan like me.  We have a beautiful AT&T Park for Giants, and a bargain Colesium for A's.  I cannot wait to go to some games this year.  Let's play ball!