31 July 2010

We finally moved some of our stuff into our new home today. These are the pics that I took after the monsoon storm.
These are much bigger pictures than the older post, however they're not the clearest because my iPhone camera sucks.

Other side of the street, looking toward the mountains on the West

Front view: the front lawn just looks worse than the pic on the first post. We have turned the sprinklers on for the last 2 weeks: the grass is still dead, the weeds are growing stronger than ever.

Back yard view of the weed jungle: We can't really see our little pond that seriously needs lots of attention.

And finally the back view of the house

30 July 2010

So I’ve had a few bad days this week. In order to last until Friday, I usually keep myself motivated by reading inspirational news or articles. I stumbled into Jobs’ talk to newly graduates at a university’s Commencement ceremony. I always keep a copy on my desktop computer at work so I could read it whenever I feel down and frustrated.

Although Jobs didn’t mention nor realize the plan of God for his life, that is actually my take-away from this story. It is to have faith, believe that you’re a child of God. Your life is a great worth to God. Heavenly Father has a great plan in store for you. Whatever challenges you may face, He will be there with you and guide you through it.

I know this is not the best article of motivation out there, but enjoy!

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it.

Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Vietnamese super supper

We had this meal a week or two ago. I was so lazy and we didn't have much food on the fridge to cook because I didn't make it to the store. That happens a lot these days since work has been keeping me super busy.

Anyhow, I'm so glad Brett loves Vietnamese food and is very not picky with food :) As long as I feed him meat, he'll be happy, haha. Oh yeah, he loves nuoc mam too. He's a keeper.

Here is our complete meal for dinner. Everything is so simple and easy to make, my mouth is so watering right now. I love Viet food.

We had boiled pork with fish sauce (nuoc mam), vietnamese omelete, carrots, some kind of squash (susu), pickled daikon and carrot(dua cu cai), pickled cabbage (dua bap cai). I was so happy that my pickle veggies just became right that day. It took them a few days to reach the right amount of sourness.



And my two jars of Dua chua:)

Catfish in tomato sauce

This was my first time preparing catfish. I've cooked Tilapia, rock fish, Halibut, and Salmon before, but not catfish. I'm not sure why. I also don't have a lot of experience making fish neither. Maybe I should start cooking more different type of fish to see which is my favorite, so far Halibut is on the top of the list.

I just wish I could make more of this. I like the taste of fish, and it's pretty healthy for you. The only reason why we don't eat it every is because of how expensive it could get. The other day, I went to the store and got 4 small pieces of Halibut for $14 that would probably feed one person and half. It's just that expensive. With that much I could buy a lot more pork, chicken, or beef. Anyway, our goal is to eat at least 1 meal with fish every week. Hopefully, that won't break our bank account :)

This is the marinate, which consisted of Worcester sauce, soy sauce, dried thyme, and olive oil.



Since i was going to bake the fish, I first seasoned with salt and pepper, then poured the marinate on.



To create more flavor, I topped with parsley leaves, green onions, and homemade tomato sauce. I folded the foil to cover it up and baked at 375 for 30 minutes.



This is how we like to eat fish :)



I made enough so that we could have some left-over for the next day because it was pretty good. I like to serve it with one veggie dish on the side. Just that simple!



To make home-made tomato sauce: cook one or more tomato in olive oil and some water until it becomes a thick liquid mixture, add salt and pepper to taste.



I have this thing for home-made tomato sauce. I really like them with fish and tofu.

Vietnamese steam buns

One of Brett’s favorite Dim Sum dishes is BBQ pork steam buns. He also likes the Vietnamese version of the steam bun. Yes, needless to say I love the Vietnamese style steam buns much better. It has more meat and a good half of a hardboiled egg. I used to have them frequently for breakfast in Vietnam.

I like the white, sweet, and fluffy buns that taste ‘Oh so good’ in the morning after come out of the steamer. I love to have hot food in the morning to warm up my little empty tummy. Ever since I came to the States, I hardly have any. Recently, I’ve became more adventurous with my cooking, and decided why not make some.

I was scared at first, but after making it for the first time that day I realized it’s unbelievably easy. I bought the flour mix for about $2 from Hong Phat, a well-known Vietnamese market in Salt Lake City. All I need to do for the bun is to follow the instructions in the bag.

The fun part is to make the pork. You’ll need ground pork, also got from Hong phat for less than $5. I prefer seasoning it with salt and pepper, some soysauce, chopped green onions, chopped garlic, and optional: Vietnamese mushrooms (moc nhi). You can be creative and add some other veggies like carrots, cabbage, etc… Maybe I’ll try this in the future. The other thing I add to the meat filling is half of a hardboiled egg cut into quarter pieces like cut it half then another half in order to wrap the flour around easily.

With one bag of flour mix, I made a dozen of these steam buns :) Well worth my $7!

Pre-cooked buns:



Cooked buns, right after coming out of the steamer



View of the meat filling. Brett loves eating these with some soy sauce. I like it either way. Oh so good!



Writing this blog makes me crave for more steam buns.... Yumyum... Fluffy buns...

Floating down Provo River

We went on a rafting trip down the Provo River a few weeks ago, and loved it. It gets so hot here in Utah during the summer, and the water of the river is quite refreshing. I remember I wasn't able to put my feet in the water for longer than 5 mins because the water was very cold. I don't think I could hop on a tube and float down the river although this river doesn't seem to have a strong current during this time of year.

More rafting pictures

Some random dog that we saw on the way, he's a very good looking dog and so active. I'd like to have one like that some day

It was such a beautiful day to be on the river

My favorite shot of the mountain

Pittock Mansion and Portland

Flowers from Pittock Mansion. They are so beautiful, I just couldn't stop taking picture of them.

Other collage of the pretty flowers.

The front view of Pittock mansion. It must be nice to live here :)

View of downtown from the huge front yard

My cute second cousin and me

 

My hubby and me

 

Portland at night, we took a random route on the way to my aunt's house for dinner and found this wonderful spot that overlooked downtown Portland.

The street y our hotel (6th ave.) While we really enjoyed staying at the Marriott downtown, we were not happy with the valet parking charge of $30/day. It was so inconvenience with a car if you stay downtown.

Interesting name just like Cooterville, OR

View of Multnomah Waterfall from the parking lot. We actually didn't make it inside because it was so crowded that day. The parking lot was so full.

Thank you Uncle Sam!

After almost half a year of house hunting/bidding, this finally comes to an end. The good news: We are now officially home owners. The bad news: We will be poor and probably in debt for the next 30 years. More bad news: We must try to find somebody take our apartment for the next 3 months, sigh :(

However, we are very, very excited that we were able to end this long and dreadful process. I like to go look at houses but really hate the waiting and back-and-forth signing an endless number of documents. We have seen over 20 houses and put in offers on 4 houses total, and finally got this one.

The first house was a short-sell and was such a steal, listed at $70/sqft. We waited for months, and the seller took a different offer regardless of us being first in line. It turned out they chose the other offer at $2,000 more than what we offered them. I guess that's how it goes with buying houses, you never know what you can get. Although we were mad that it didn't work out, I'm glad we didn't get it because we now got a decent deal for a much better house.

The second house was a bankown/foreclosure. It was a very pretty and spacious home: I remember the kitchen was granite with double oven and stainless steel appliances. We put on our offer almost $30,000 above the asking price and still didn't get it. At least we didn't have to wait for so long with that offer to get that rejection. We were sad for not being able to get it. It was a little too much house for us (3,500 sqft home, 3 car garage, .30 acre lot of backyard), and it would make our monthly payment about $1,000 more. It's good not to have bought that after all.

The third house was similar to the second house, but not as nice. However, it was very close to my in-laws. The seller was trying to sell the house to move in with their parents on the same street. They're LDS; that means if we moved in we would be in the same ward. How awkward would that be! Again, no regret for not getting this house.

We are truly blessed with this whole process. I'm so grateful that everything worked out for the best. Yes, I must admit we love our new home and can't wait to move in soon. Despite being a foreclosure from Fannie Mae, it is in great shape, much better than some of the houses that we've seen in the past that are seller occupied. No major fixing other than cleaning the carpet, repainting the room if we want to, some caulking for the bathtub, and replacing a couple of broken sprinkler heads.

The front view of my humble abode. Please ignore the dead looking lawn, the house hasn't been occupied for over a year. Let's see what I can do to turn that around. Tiny picture, I know... I cut it out of my appraisal docs, haha. Will post more pictures soon :)

The back view

 

The neighborhood

The drive to/from Oregon

This post is dedicated to all of the places we stopped by while driving through Oregon.  It took us about 11 hours to get there from Salt Lake City. It would have taken less time if Oregon changed their speed limit to 75. Also, it wouldn't have taken that too long if we didn't have many scenic stops. The drive was beautiful in some areas mostly in Oregon and got somewhat boring in Idaho and Utah.

While Brett drove the whole time, I took pictures of the beautiful drive so we have something to look at and share now :)





On the way there, we saw a lot of trucks carrying oversized load looks like pieces of the windmill. They don't look too big in pictures and from distance. I know they're not small, but were very surprise to see how huge each little hand is



I think this is Bonneville Dam



This is by Memaloose overlook of the Columbia River, that divides Oregon and Washington. It was kind of rainy and cloudy when we got there. The weather was so nice, mostly in the 60s and low 70s. What a nice break from Utah summer, eh?



Fun drive up the lookout point



Not sure what this area is. It looks fun though, like little pond by the big river. Not so intimidating to go swimming here.



The whole area up here is cover in this little blue flower.



Here is our lookout spot



Now here is an island in the middle of the big river, where we want to build a house and live there. I think it would be nice :)



This is a historic lookout near Idaho border.



As we were driving up to this point, we almost hit a little Bambi trying to cross the freeway. I'm so glad Brett was driving and not me. I would probably kill the deer.



And this is one of our few pictures of us together. You probably notice we don't take a lot of pictures of ourselves. Yeah, I like landscape pictures and Brett doesn't like to get his pictures taken.

It's so fluffy, I'm gonna die!!!

I saw Despicable Me this past weekend with my hubby, and loveeeeeeeed it!!! It totally lived up to my expectations from the many previews I've seen. Such a cute and funny movie with great story behind the laugh. We're going to buy it when it comes out on DVDs.

Ok, I just adore little Agnes who loves unicorn, especially fluffy one. She looks like a bigger Boo from Monster Inc.



Ok, this is my kinda of fluffy thing: Although I'm not a fan of week but this dandelion is so big and fluffy... I saw this and snapped a macro pic of it when I was at Memaloose viewpoint on my way to Portland.

Cannon Beach - Oregon

During our trip to Portland, Brett and I took half a day to go to a beach nearby. Cannon Beach is about 1.5 hours from Portland, so we decided to go there. I've heard a lot about how beautiful it is and was so excited to visit for the first time.

Since it's a pretty short drive it's a very decent half day trip from the city. The drive there was very beautiful. We really enjoyed the rain forest, scenic drive in the Pacific Northwest. Everything about it is beautiful: the huge green trees, the moss growing everywhere, the fresh cent of the forest, the variety of wild flowers, etc... It just felt so fresh and good being there.



The water was really cold, and I actually dipped my toe into the water once to test it out.



We were somewhat lucky because it rained 3 days out of 4 days we were there. The day we went to the beach happened to be mostly cloudy; the sun would come out for a minute, then disappear behind those thick clouds. Also, a perfect day for horseback riding. Looks so much fun!



Cannon Beach is known for the haystack. It's very unique and reminded me of Halong Bay and the famous view of the limestone.






Yes, I'd love to have a beach house someday. This beach house is just steps from the sandy beach with a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean. One day we might have the money to buy one. I like the colorful paint of this cute one.



Brett loves the water... look at him enjoying the view :)



The view of the town. This is such a cute little town. It didn't take us much time to walk back and forth from the beach to the stores downtown. As I recall we walked back and forth about 3 times. First, we were so excited to see the beach we walked down there after lunch. The second time, I realized that I wore the wrong shoes and left my flip flops in the car. The third time we got to the beach we forgot to bring our beach towel.



We went to this store to buy our beach towel that we forgot to pack, haha.



Did I mention that we had a great lunch at Ecola Seafood Restaurant? They have the best fish and chips I ever had in my life.



Inside view



Can't forget the food. It was so tasty. We ordered halibut, salmon, and a cup of clam chowder. Love every single bite of this meal. Just wishing we have fresh seafood in Utah. I guess we just have to come back more often.



Ahh, it was a fun trip. Goodbye, Cannon Beach! Hopefully, we'll see you again soon!