San Diego trip

This is our 3rd time to visit San Diego. It has become our family tradition to visit San Diego in winter.

Because we did not want Matthew to skip school, we planned to leave Friday afternoon, Dec. 16th. That also meant I need to work Friday pretty much the whole day. Packing was not quite organized but we managed to have most of the stuff in boxes.

There were always surprises. All 3 kids got diarrhea problems starting the night earlier. We decided not to take any chances and visited our trusted Chinese doctor Chen YuXiu. When we left her clinic, it was almost 3 o'clock, meaning we would not arrive in San Diego until mid-night.

We took 101, 152 west, and highway 5. The driving was uneventful except 2 stops for bathroom and dinner time for McDonald. Purchased Starbuck's canned double espresso but it turned out not so good, too much starch taste.

Driving on highway 5 at winter night is challanging - Dense fog around the intersection of highway 99 and highway 5. Luckily our 2004 Sienna has fog lights. I turned them on and the drive was quite pleasant. This year the fog was not that bad, only about 5 minutes drive time or so; unlike last year we had only 5 minutes of clear vision.

Right before we were about to enter LA mountain area, we had our regular stop. When we hit the road, we found out the right headlight of our 2004 Sienna was out. Maybe it was jealous about the fog lights and quitted working.

Highway 5 into LA was OK. We took 605 then 405 to bypass Orange County because highway 5 was clogged there. We arrived at our destination, Oceanside city, at 10:30 PM.

When we unpacked our stuff in our resort, I was quite upset for just a moment because
1. A 5 gallon thermos without power cord
2. No chopsticks
3. No razor

Well, those things turned out to be not so important anyway and we will probably skip them the next time we travel.

Our schedule was
Saturday Lego Land
Sunday Sea World
Monday Beach and Costco shopping
Tuesday San Diego Zoo
Wednesday Sea World
Thursday Lego Land
Friday - pack and drive back

We followed our schedule and managed to visit Toyota Carlsbad twice on Monday and Thursday for the headlight. The light bulb was 300 dollars a piece. Toyota tried to fix it twice and both times it failed in 5 minutes. Lucky me. This thing was under warranty and I did not need to pay a penny.

All family members got some respiratory problems at the end of our journey. The air condition in South California was quite bad. In the evenings, you saw fog coming into the coast from ocean. But it was not just fog, it had tiny particles so it was really smog. On our way back, we too 405 and go through Long Beach and the western side of LA. The sky was grey, not because of overcast but because there was no rain in six months.

This was the first time we ever drove highway 5 back at day time. We saw a huge pasture full of cattle. No wonder we always smelled something when we drove highway 5 at night before.

After we came back, we spent the whole week trying to recover from our illness. Meanwhile, I was busy running between Audi and Toyota dealers to have both of my cars maintained. Audi cost me 2000 dollars because all the belts, water pump, and sensors were replaced. The dealer also managed to fix the oil leak problem. Even though the car itself costs 2500, I would rather put the same money to keep it running because you can hardly get a car that good with 2500. And for Toyota, the light problem was the ECU (must be some control unit), not the bulb. We got both of our cars back before new year eve so I could pick up my sister's family from China trip at SFO airport on 12/31. The bad thing was that my Toyota got a BIG scratch on the left running board. Toyota promised to fix that on 1/4/2006, but I cannot send my car for repair until 1/9/2006. So we will see.

By the way, this is what happens after two weeks without razor...

Question #3: Network Monitoring - is it good for company?

My company announced a policy today - it is going to monitor all network traffic and is going to monitor all applications installed on the individual workstations.

It sounded OK. But if I were the head of a company, I would not do so. Why?

Our company is doing software. In my opinion, software quality and productivity are the two most important things. If my team can accomplish both on schedule, they can do whatever they want to do. On the other hand, posing a policy like that can affect morale, and it does not necessary help either software quality or productivity.

Google has a company policy of letting its employee spend 20% of their time doing their own stuff. It reminds me of my own stories when I was in senior high. My mom and teachers did not like me hanging around reading books other than textbooks. For a typical Chinese, students should only read textbooks and should not have too much activities other than reading. I somehow disagree. If you can finish your homework early and you get all A grads in every area, why won't you spend time doing something else, which could eventually benefit you in the end?

I think this typical thinking also limit Chinese achievement. We are not a creative race any longer. We are raised not to have fun. This is so wrong.

Back to my company stuff. If I am going to be a boss, I will set up a project schedule that every party agrees. Once a project is launched, if you can finish early, you can use your free time doing whatever you like, like paid vacation. If you somehow cannot finish your work, I have to do some analysis why you do not achieve the goal you promised. A network monitor can be performed at that time and show if the produtivity is related to network surfing or not. Meanwhile, I will also encourage you to finish your next assignment on time, so you can be like others enjoying their free time. Doesn't it sound more reasonable?

You can do your own thinking...

Question #2 - To help, or not?

Here is another hypothetical question.

A charming young woman has a close male friend. One day, this woman has some trouble. She went to the friend's place and started crying. This man, as her close friend, gave her a hug and started listening to her stories. They spent that night together. Nothing exciting, but sitting close to each other in front of the fireplace.

Would this young man hear from the lady again?

I asked my wife this question. Her response, which I think most women will agree, is no. Because she does not want to have any closer relationship with that young man.

My opinion is, this young lady owed him an explanation. My reasoning is, I cannot imagine I will lose a good friend by simply helping her. At least I need some good explanation. To be honest, if I were the man and if I was given a good explanation, I still could not believe that I lost her because I helped her.

This is seems to be a dilemma, what will you do?

Question #1: Playing separate tunes. What is your choice?

Heidi Tsai found me through Skype. We had lost contact for more than 11 years. Internet is amazing, in many different ways.

Today, we chatted about the marriage stuff, and I pointed to an article I wrote about an year ago, when I was deeply depressed. I just moved to a new house, learned that my wife was pregnant, and got tired with the current job.

Let me use a piano playing story as an analogy. When you started, your hands coordinate perfectly. You heard beautiful tunes. Every now and then, one of your hand slipped a few notes, off keys a little bit, or went at a different tempo. You could still tell the melody, but it did not sound in harmony. You keep playing until you can no longer tell what you were try to play because it is so out of tune. You stop. What are you going to do next? What is your decision?

You can quit, of course. But please don't forget your goal is to play piano. Quitting won't help in the long run.

You can also pretend everything is in harmony. If your ears can endure, then fine with it.
You can also keep practicing until the other hand is back in coordination. The problem is, you don't know how long it will take and you don't know if you can actually get it back. And you have to endure the noises during your practice.

So, what is your choice again? I will leave that to you.

Stick to your double standard

I do believe there should be standards for everything not human related. I also believe that people are biased and unfair because we have emotions.

I will try to start each blog with a question, and then post my opinion. Everyone has an opinion of something, and it is OK not to agree with the others. A lot of times, there is no right and wrong; it is simply a matter of taste. But a lot of times, I do think there is a better way to do things.

Get confused? Not in agreement? It is perfectly all right. Just stick to your own double standard.

阿Mo