My Public Journal

The Working Life

2010-11-07T20:31:00.000-08:00

Well, its been months upon months since writing my last entry. By now you've probably figured out the reason is the title of this article. Work is something that is great but comes with its costs. Time is something that you must devote to the job, for which you are rewarded with monetary compensation and invaluable experience in your field. However, the less time you have the less time you can use to reflect on where you are and where you're going. Less time to write in personal blogs, for example. That is my only thought at the moment.

Yosemite

2010-06-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

One thing I learned about Yosemite is that they have huge trees. Oh, forgot to mention the majestic mountains and replete parking lots and roads.

Moving in to Atlanta, the Working Life

2010-02-28T11:27:00.000-08:00

I landed in Atlanta on February 13th, 2010. I had spent the previous week training for my current assignment, and before that had enjoyed a respite in three places: Germany, Hawaii, and Idaho. I rented a car at Avis for two weeks, and spent the next two hours trying to navigate to my destination, which would take a local less than 40 minutes. It certainly did not help that the traffic on I-35 was backed up and when the cars did start moving they moved way too fast and recklessly so that changing lanes became a chore. The directions given, while helpful if no wrong turns were made, were rendered useless the farther I deviated from course.

That Monday, I started work. While work does go by quickly, when it's over your day is gone - something I am not accustomed to just coming out of university life. I was provided with temporary accommodations, but decided the very first day where I was to lived and moved in on Saturday. My apartment was completely empty, and there were a few kinks that needed to be ironed out including a extremely short hot water duration (apparently they were 'going green'), and a bathroom sink that wasn't a sink but more of a basin (the water did not drain). Thankfully, my work order was promptly resolved.

After getting some furniture at the town IKEA, and after my car was delivered (a journey of over 2,170 miles), I decided to return my rental car early to a nearby Avis location. To my surprise and dismay, they were about to charge me over $1200 because I was in breach of contract by turning in early and dropping it off at a different location. I said no thanks and kept the car parked until it was due and just this morning returned the car to the airport (turns out returning the car is much, much easier than checking it out.

In my free time, you could basically call me a carpenter because I have been assembling furniture including my bed, computer desk, office couch, lamps, and soon my bookshelf and media center. What started out as eating out everyday has migrated into eating ramen and microwave foods and just recently I have been cooking chicken and rice mixed in with some vegetables on the frying pan. I am curious as to how to make things using the oven but have not yet had time to figure out. Slowly but surely my apartment is getting filled with the necessities and my refrigerator too.

What surprised me is actually the amount of strength both mental and physical required to move in. Had I been any weaker, I could not have singlehandedly carried my bed frame, mattress, loads of groceries, etc. Had I not had the mental prowess in keeping a keen eye on what was going on I would have been hoodwinked by the outlying Avis center and also the terms of my lease. For most, I suspect adrenaline would be required to do this, luckily I have only had to use it on my first day in.

Swimming in Hanauma Bay

2010-01-24T21:53:00.001-08:00

Last week I had the pleasure to swim in Hanauma Bay. First though, I would like to mention the means of arriving at this almost sacred destination.

Driving up to Hanauma bay, I noticed a sign saying FULL for the parking lot. Noticing two overweight female 'enforcers' with audio cables leading into both of there ears, and also multiple empty spots from a vantage point on the road above the bay's parking lot, I had to shout to get their attention. To my outrage, the two refused to listen to my explanation and simply yelled PARKIN LOT'S FULL, TRY AGAIN! Pulling to the side of the road opposite the parking lot, they pulled out their loudspeaker and yelled MOVE!, and then proceeded to chuckle and laugh amongst themselves.

Thanks to my immaculate patience, I was finally able to enter after 5 rounds of going back and forth waiting for their superiors to call and tell them there were spots available. On the fifth time around they were gone, and so were the signs. Problem solved, without bitter confrontation and without having to see the two ever again.

Once down to the bay, parked and ready to swim, I was again irritated when sudo-guards appeared and forced me after I had already bought my ticket without warning of such requirement to attend a mandatory education session in a room packed with semi-naked underly clad tourists such as myself. The session began with a video clip that was 80% ethnic Hawaiian music displaying some nice scenery without words and the rest repeatedly warning the potential swimmers and snorkelers not to step on reefs or feed the fish.

After finally getting into the water, the wait and irritations paid off. I was able to see under the water dozens of fish and a few special reef dwellers and bottom-movers such as the sea-snail, sea cucumber, eel, pufferfish, and a mighty scary looking fish with teeth outside its mouth that continuously rammed into the coral, eating it. There were quite a few fish whose species I do not know yet they were quite colorful and vibrant.

I had gone to the bay with my cousins and their kids, and unfortunately neither of them got to see what I had as they stayed quite close to the shore to protect their younglings from danger. Once I swam my fill, I joined them on the beach to find other wonders of nature such as wild roosters running about and also a pack of mongoose that made loud noises as they literally went dumpster diving from a nearby rock ledge.

While leaving the beach I took quite a few photos and also had a coin printed using the ever so ingenious device that costs 51 cents and spits out a deformed 1 cent.

Basking in the Hawaiian Sun after walking through dark and cold Germany

2010-01-24T21:45:00.000-08:00

Weather can make a big difference, yet people make even more difference. The end of last year and the first weeks of this year were spent in Germany with my wonderful girlfriend and the time I had there was excellent, regardless of the freezing temperatures and dark and gloomy weather. The past week I spent in Hawaii with my relatives and the time I had there had its ups and downs but in general was not as good as my trip to Germany.

Yes there was swimming, good food, and great company in Hawaii yet the time visiting someone who is at the top of my priorities trumps them all. Of course being in a place with great weather with the person I wish most to be with would be the best of all.

China Building 300 Billion Dollar Train System

2009-10-24T11:00:00.000-07:00

China is putting some of it's hard earned money to good use - by building the world's largest, fastest, and most advanced train system in the world. The high speed rail line will connect Shanghai to Beijing, and boast a top speed of 220 mph and be able to deliver passengers in just four hours.

Is the world drifting into chaos?

2009-10-20T16:42:00.001-07:00

Or is it becoming steadily more ordered, while things of chaotic nature are simply over advertised and broadcast? This is a question that always comes up as one thinks of the things that are happening today - for example recently we have a man who had claimed his son was in a balloon that could not physically carry that much weight 10,000 feet above sea level; we also have pirates going wild in Somalia and have in the past year witnessed the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Berneke: Asians Spend More Plz

2009-10-19T09:52:00.000-07:00

When it comes down to the bottom line, a huge role in the disaster that is the US economy comes from trade imbalance. Asian countries, especially China, are exporting to the US more than they are consuming by the US therefore killing our local manufacturing sector while increasing our national debt thanks to the horrifically low average savings rate of the US citizen - less than 5 percent of income according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (link).

Another strong issue of contention that was skirted by the Fed Cheif during today's talk was the US dollar and the RMB's value compared to it, which is widely believed to be severely undervalued thanks to its government-determined pegging rate to the USD. The government imposed exchange rate is bound to explode resulting in the exploding value of the RMB compared to the dollar.

The Senseless Drunk ROTC Kid at Lunch

2009-10-10T11:25:00.001-07:00

Ok, finally a story worth writing about. My friend Aaron and I went to lunch at Seasons here at Iowa State, and happened to sit not far from a dude who had snuck in cans of beer and was pouring them into his glasses and drinking them. It would have been fine if he kept it at that, but he kept on yelling to his friends about how many he had drank and sardonically mentioned that he was drinking 'apple juice'.

All would be fine and dandy except this boisterous young ROTC student was halfway yelling profanities about trivial matters and calling women (the ones he had been talking to just a few minutes beforehand) names that should never be used to describe women. The topics he was discussing were lewd and trivial yet spoken in such an ostentatious way as to attract the attention of others including myself.

This was not the first instance of this individual evoking my disdain, as just a few days ago he and his buddies were yelling at people getting drinks out of the soda fountain. "Sierra Mist .. Yeaaah!!! Go Sieraa Mist!!" They would shout when anyone happened to be foolish enough of get a drink out of their 'territory'. They would yell, jeer, and clap when anyone walked near their table.

My greatest fear through these experiences is that these individuals who participate in such barbaric activity will pass their ROTC training and be commissioned as officers in either the Army or Navy. Who knows what mischief they will indulge in when stationed overseas, or God forbid to a combat zone. I hate to make sweeping generalizations, for I know there are a lot of good people in ROTC but there are just a few that stain the program's reputation.

Mid-Autumn Festival Disaster

2009-10-04T22:54:00.000-07:00

I don't really know why I still go to these things, I guess it's to meet a lot of friends I haven't seen for awhile. It took place in the Ames city hall, and started half an hour late. In the meantime, you could wait outside with the five or more smokers clearly disregarding the city ordinance banning smoking in and around public buildings. Inside, after you paid five dollars for who knows what you are given a moon cake that doesn't have any egg yolks inside (aka a cheap and fake moon cake).

The shows were absent of any traditional China, except for the lion dance performed at the beginning by the Malaysian team. After that it just got worse, including break dancing, cheerleader-like activities with scantily dressed girls in essence fooling around on stage without the synchronization or technical aspects that real cheer leaders possess.

The singing was simply karaoke taken to the next level, with a large audience. I did get some enjoyment out of the instrumental music, but the one piano performance was cut short by the closing of the curtains.

There were a few skits, the first of which the actors failed to be audible and the rest consisted of chiefly dirty jokes and cross-dressing to impress the audience. It really amazes me how little it takes to get a clap out of the audience...

The visit was worthwhile, however, since I participated in one of their no-talent contests (in my case taking a three syllable word and saying it backwards) and won a wooden cutting board.

Google Reconsideration Very Fast

2009-09-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up and checked Google search to see if my adamrlee.org was back in their index as I had submitted a reconsideration request the day before. Turns out it was! The reason for it being unindexed eludes me, but I suspect it was a problem with my shared web server, as another domain on the same server was also unindexed. When I start getting a steady income, I'll make sure to build my own server or buy a dedicated one to avoid further frustrations of this sort. Now that I think about it, I did manually adjust the crawl rate on my website up a notch, which I have now changed. A super high frequency crawl rate probably has more of a chance of not getting the whole website in time.

The only problem with Google reconsideration is that there will be no reply email addressing why the site was not indexed. This is because the sites are physically checked by humans, and humans actually resolve these cases. The unindexing is done by machines, and if the reindexing was also done by an algorithm then quickly sending why the site went down would be feasible. I guess another reason why the reason for deindexing is not given is that blackhat SEO websites would purposely use this system to see what they can and can't get away with, so I doubt the system will change any time soon.

Ping Pong and Skating on a Friday Night

2009-09-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up at 9:00AM. I went back to sleep and set the alarm for 9:30AM. When the 9:30 alarm went off I set it for 9:40, but soon after canceled my alarm, got out of bed and took a shower. Now that I was conscious I was able to quickly get dressed and head for my American Indian studies class, the one required American diversity class for my major. In class I met Jamilee, who was like always ready and alert. I was also ready, and had read the more than 100 page reading out of The American Holocaust, a dark book about the terrible injustices done to the Native Americans since the time of Columbus. I could fill paragraphs of what I read in the book, but I suggest you to read it yourself.

Later in the day, I went to my Industrial Engineering course on 'Economics for Engineers', basically a course covering the feasibility of projects based on ARR's, interest rates, maintenance, return, etc. I was one of the fifty percent of the class to get a 100% on the clicker quiz. After the class I did some reading on OFDM.

After reading I went to the MU and happened upon a LAS major fair, where representatives of majors ranging from Geology to Technical Communications were talking about their area. At the geology section, I was given a free geode! We talked a bit about different types of metal, and how the US is virtually devoid of tungsten. We also talked about China's new policy of hording rare-earth metals much to the chagrin of other countries. Afterwords I looked at a weather simulation at the Meteorology section and then ate a marshmallow that was in liquid nitrogen, which was very cool. I then talked to a guy with the first name Lee who gave me some tips on websites that help with SEO.

After leaving the major fair I went to play piano in the West Lounge. After playing a guy who was hidden laying on the sofa next to me got up, it turned out to be Henry Bai who I know from classes. I was impressed with his knowledge of the piano, and afterwords he and I took a walk to a the English building to help some foreign students and residents of Ames learn English. That lasted an hour, I met three girls Tanya from Ukraine, Yuan and Shan from China, and Arian from here in Iowa. During the time there, Justin Ge was pestering me of whether or not I wanted to play Majhong later on.

This is Andrew about to miss the ball.

After getting back, we decided to play ping pong. Aaron, Justin and I headed downstairs to play first. After Aaron lost five or six to one he threw the paddle (which happened to by my 300 yuan paddle from China) on the ground and left. I then proceeded to play Justin, losing two games before beating him. After that Cody came down and shortly later Andrew came too, we had some fun but mostly it was learning how to play and fooling around after that.

Later in the night, Aaron and I went skating on my skateboard and scooter. We went by some rowdy drunkards, which was to be expected. Since when we went past a group of drunk girls and frat guys when I was riding the scooter, they sort of made fun of me. They said things like "I rode a scooter in 5th grade" and "Why is this dude riding a scooter?" I was unphased and enjoyed the cool night air, while avoiding the physical and mental harms of alcohol.