WEN'S Horizon - Life

Huge mushroom in Aldrich Park

On my way to lunch today in Aldrich Park, this huge mushroom was seen from far away since it's so shiny under sunlight.

Wildfires broke out again

Yesterday as Santa Ana winds blew across Southern California, wildfires broke out in many places. From Irvine, I could see a large portion of the sky was contaminated by smoke. The temperature went up to 100 F (about 37 C). I took some pictures at our observatory, and then went swimming as it was so hot.

UCI Observatory

Today the fires are still raging. Tonight Irvine's air becomes smoky.

Game 18

## Game: 18 | Hand: 1 ##
Player 1 posts small blind ($10)
Human Player posts big blind ($20)
Player 1 calls $20.
Human Player bets $60.
Player 1 folds.
Human Player wins $80

## Game: 18 | Hand: 2 ##
Human Player posts small blind ($20)
Player 1 posts big blind ($40)
Human Player bets $80.
Player 1 calls $80.
--- Flop --- [Qs,Ks,3h]
Player 1 checks.
Human Player is all in with $940.
Player 1 is all in with $900.
Human Player shows [Th,9s]
Player 1 shows [7c,Qd]
--- Turn --- [Qs,Ks,3h,7d]
--- River --- [Qs,Ks,3h,7d,Kc]
Human Player has "One Pair, Kings"
Player 1 has "Two Pairs, Kings and Queens"
Player 1 wins $1960
Human Player wins $40 (side pot)

## Game: 18 | Hand: 3 ##
Player 1 posts small blind ($40)
Human Player posts big blind ($40)
Human Player shows [3h,Js]
Player 1 shows [6s,5d]
--- Flop --- [2d,Kh,8h]
--- Turn --- [2d,Kh,8h,4h]
--- River --- [2d,Kh,8h,4h,8s]
Human Player has "One Pair, Eights, fourth card Jack"
Player 1 has "One Pair, Eights, fourth card Six"
Human Player wins $80

## Game: 18 | Hand: 4 ##
Human Player posts small blind ($80)
Player 1 posts big blind ($160)
Human Player shows [2s,6d]
Player 1 shows [Tc,3h]
--- Flop --- [6h,4c,Qd]
--- Turn --- [6h,4c,Qd,6c]
--- River --- [6h,4c,Qd,6c,2d]
Human Player has "Full House, Sixes full of Deuces"
Player 1 has "One Pair, Sixes"
Human Player wins $160
Player 1 wins $80 (side pot)

## Game: 18 | Hand: 5 ##
Player 1 posts small blind ($160)
Human Player posts big blind ($160)
Human Player shows [4c,Ks]
Player 1 shows [Qd,9s]
--- Flop --- [Ac,Jc,3h]
--- Turn --- [Ac,Jc,3h,Qc]
--- River --- [Ac,Jc,3h,Qc,5c]
Human Player has "Flush, Ace high"
Player 1 has "One Pair, Queens"
Human Player wins $320

## Game: 18 | Hand: 6 ##
Human Player posts small blind ($320)
Player 1 posts big blind ($640)
Human Player shows [Kc,2h]
Player 1 shows [4h,Qh]
--- Flop --- [As,7s,Qc]
--- Turn --- [As,7s,Qc,5c]
--- River --- [As,7s,Qc,5c,Ks]
Human Player has "One Pair, Kings"
Player 1 has "One Pair, Queens"
Human Player wins $640
Player 1 wins $320 (side pot)

## Game: 18 | Hand: 7 ##
Player 1 posts small blind ($640)
Human Player posts big blind ($640)
Human Player shows [Qs,9d]
Player 1 shows [6h,Jc]
--- Flop --- [Ad,4h,8s]
--- Turn --- [Ad,4h,8s,Ts]
--- River --- [Ad,4h,8s,Ts,2s]
Human Player has "High Card, Ace, second card Queen"
Player 1 has "High Card, Ace, second card Jack"
Human Player wins $1280

## Game: 18 | Hand: 8 ##
Human Player posts small blind ($1280)
Player 1 posts big blind ($720)
Human Player shows [Td,Qd]
Player 1 shows [6h,Jh]
--- Flop --- [6s,8s,7d]
--- Turn --- [6s,8s,7d,7s]
--- River --- [6s,8s,7d,7s,Ac]
Human Player has "One Pair, Sevens"
Player 1 has "Two Pairs, Sevens and Sixes"
Player 1 wins $1440
Human Player wins $560 (side pot)

## Game: 18 | Hand: 9 ##
Player 1 posts small blind ($1440)
Human Player posts big blind ($560)
Human Player shows [Tc,Ac]
Player 1 shows [5h,9s]
--- Flop --- [Ah,6s,5s]
--- Turn --- [Ah,6s,5s,Th]
--- River --- [Ah,6s,5s,Th,2c]
Human Player has "Two Pairs, Aces and Tens"
Player 1 has "One Pair, Fives"
Human Player wins $1120
Player 1 wins $880 (side pot)

## Game: 18 | Hand: 10 ##
Human Player posts small blind ($1120)
Player 1 posts big blind ($880)
Human Player shows [Kc,9s]
Player 1 shows [6d,9c]
--- Flop --- [7h,8c,7c]
--- Turn --- [7h,8c,7c,3c]
--- River --- [7h,8c,7c,3c,2c]
Human Player has "Flush, King high"
Player 1 has "Flush, Nine high"
Human Player wins $2000
Player 1 sits out

Human Player wins game 18!

Heron

(Chinese version of this topic, 中文版)

Today when I was getting back home, I saw a big bird on a street light just outside my apartment. Such big birds appeared in our community every now and then, but before today I never had a chance to take a picture of them. I quickly went back home and took out my camera. Good, he's still there. I then happily took some nice shots of him. I noticed he looked like the bird in Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron, so I searched online and found that he actually was a heron.

...

Read the whole topic

[Copy] UC Irvine Olympians Bring Home Gold, Silver

Copy from http://ucirvinesports.cstv.com/genrel/082608aab.html

Aug. 26, 2008

Irvine, Calif. – The 2008 Olympic Games were a success for UC Irvine athletes and coaches, helping the U.S. to both gold and silver medals.

UC Irvine head men’s volleyball coach John Speraw was a member of the United States men’s indoor volleyball team that captured a gold medal. In an emotional tournament, the Americans went undefeated and earned the team’s first gold medal since 1988. UCI women’s volleyball assistant Jay Hosack was also member of the U.S. men’s staff, but did not travel with the team to Beijing.

In the pool, the All-American quartet of Ryan Bailey, Jeff Powers, Tim Hutten and Rick Merlo helped the U.S. men's water polo team to a silver medal, its best finish since 1988 when they also captured the silver. Bailey and Powers each added six goals during the tournament, while Hutten and Merlo, playing in their first Olympics, scored three and two goals, respectively.

Brittany Hayes, a current graduate student at UCI, also won a silver medal with the U.S. women’s water polo team.

Former UCI sailor Jay Glaser coached the Netherlands to a sixth-place finish in the Tornado event. It was Glaser’s fourth Olympic Games, competing as an athlete in 1984 and as a coach the last three Games.

In badminton, Eva Lee lost her singles match to Canada's Anna Rice in three sets, but made history as the first American to win a game in Olympic competition. Lee paired with May Mangkalakiri in doubles, but lost to Singapore's Yanmei Jiang and Yujia Li, 0-2.

Cyclist Amber Neben finished 33rd in the women's road race.

Former All-American sailor Nick Scandone will begin his Olympic quest at the Paralympics September 6-17 in Beijing. Scandone will be competing in the two-person keelboat event, skippering the SKUD 18 with crew Maureen McKinnon-Tucker.

Recent life

Xi said my English blog is not as good as my Chinese blog. Well, at least Mandarin is my quasi-native language. She also said I write blogs less often than I used to. That's because these days I have too many photos to organize and thus have less time to write stuff. Now, I decide to write more, and try to write in both languages.

Recently I've been having too much business. Last Thursday I just got back from Yellowstone. Then on Friday, I had to write an overdue resume and make a website, for yesterday's and today's conference at General Atomics at San Diego. Friday night, Guo's family offered dinner to many friends including me. After dinner, we got together to watch the Olympic opening ceremony. Saturday night, dinner at Lake Forest and poker afterwards with Xi et al. Yesterday and today, some colleagues and I commute to San Diego to attend the conference mentioned above. In order to avoid the jammed traffic, we took off at 6am. In spite of that, a lot of people were driving on the freeway already. The freeway entrance signal was on, 2 cars per green. What's worse, there's no carpool lane on quite a part of our way. Fortunately the traffic wasn't too bad. We kept driving at above 85mph.

Chinese version:
Xi说偶写英文blog不及中文写得传神（显然嘛，国语好歹是quasi-native），又说偶写得不够勤奋（以前都写纯文字，现在追求图文并茂，结果累积一堆照片都来不及整理，文字部分也就拖着了）。那好吧，现在开始少点应酬，多些写blog，另外争取写双语。

最近确实应酬很多，上周四黄石回来，周五先要赶制overdue的resume，然后做网站，都是为了昨天和今天的在San Diego的General Atomics开的会。General Atomics居然是政府机构，戒备森严，申请进出要提交包括resume在内的个人背景资料，才能获得通行证。周五晚应老Guo老婆邀请去吃晚饭，饭后看NBC录播的奥运开幕式，当时感觉很好很强大。周六跟Xi等在Lake Forest晚饭后打牌。昨天今天连续两天commute去San Diego开会。为避开freeway上的commute高峰大堵车，早上6点就上路。其实6点上路车也不少了，入口已经有红灯，2 cars per green。路上很长一段没有carpool lane，变态。不过形势不算太差，持续开在85mph以上。

OMG! My 1st earthquake experience

11:42am PDT this morning, everybody was working in the office as normal this morning. Suddenly everything started to shake. 1 second later I realized it's an earthquake. I was freaked out, looking around for any help or any direction, but I got nothing. Xi was still asking, "should we run away?" Then I saw Zehua was running out. I followed immediately without thinking. At the stairs, the building calmed down and the earthquake stopped. Phew~~~ We walked back and found everybody's in the hallway, listening to a professor's talking about some science of earthquakes, "... You can estimate the distance to the epicenter by the interval of the P wave and the S wave. It's the same as estimating the distance to the lightning point by the interval of the lightning and the thunder. For this earthquake, the interval was only a few seconds so the epicenter should be quite near... " I could feel the interval of the two waves but I had no idea how fast those guys propagate. A department secretary was walking around asking if everybody's OK.

I got back to my office. The internet was totally normal. The news saying that the quake magnitude was 5.8 was already published online. How fast! That's about only 3 minutes after the quake. Google map also showed that the epicenter was about 20 miles from Irvine. Professor Chen came in and said our office building can sustain a quake of magnitude 7. Telephone services were jammed for quite a while since too many people were calling families and friends.

After lunch, I went back home to confirm everything's fine. News changed the magnitude of this quake to 5.4.

[Map contained, read the original topic to see it]

Standing on the 109th floor of Las Vegas

Standing on the 109th floor of Las Vegas,
facing the light sea of the Entertainment Capital.
I want to capture this gorgeous moment,
quietly, silently, clearly,
but hot winds are dancing crazily.
They are shaking the light sea.
They are shaking my hair and my hands.
They are shaking the images in my camera.
I thereupon indulge my body in the strong turbulence,
floating and drifting along,
until the broadcast says,
"Time is now 2am.
Tower rides are closed.
Hope to see you next time..."

To remember the moment on the Stratosphere Tower, Las Vegas, at 2am PDT on July 13th, 2008.

4th of July fireworks (July 4, 2008)

This summer is much better than last one. More jobs to do and more money (hopefully). In the office, more people and more fun. More place to travel and more photos to take. More games to play and more exciting movies to watch. And today is my 1st time to watch the 4th of July fireworks.

See all the photos in the Photo Gallery...

...

Read the whole topic

No bike on campus? WTF!

When try to bike in the Aldrich Park, you see this sign:

Hmm, interesting, "Use Ring Mall". Bike on Ring Mall? Stop! Look at this:

Damn it!

China Earthquake Memorial: Candle Light Symphony (June 1, 2008)

Does he understand?

University Hills (May 18, 2008)

Was collecting donations for the earthquake in China from the faculty. Took some pictures around.

Donation for the earthquake in China

Thanks to the 2-day donation booth set up by CSSA@UCI , we oversea Chinese students have a way to express our concern and our helping wish about the horrifying earthquake. It's said that in the first half day, over $10,000 was collected. Good job, Chinese students!

By the way, a few years ago, a teacher said in a class that when there's a disaster in the Chinese community, people from other countries donate more money than Chinese people do. However, according to what I see today, I'm proud to say that that is not true.

Hot pot party (Apr. 23, 2008)

This week's LXP event: hot pot party. I don't know who came up this idea, but what a fun event! Look at the variety of our ingredients:

Let's start cooking. Put the ingredients in the pot and wait for it to boil.

Well, I know it looks tasty, but watched pot never boils...

...

Finally the food's ready. It smells so good, tastes so delicious. There's no way to resist :

...

Read the whole topic

Bowling at Irvine Lanes (April 10, 2008)

A fun night organized by LXP.

$10.75 for 2 games and shoes rental. It's a little expensive, but it's pretty near to UCI. As gas price is so high these days, you really don't want to go far away.

[Map contained, read the original topic to see it]
Irvine Lanes
3415 Michelson Dr
Irvine, CA 92612
(949) 786-9625
http://www.irvinelanes.com

...

Read the whole topic

HP computers are full of junk

Tons of junk softwares are pre-installed, including:

Microsoft Works: It does NOT work, at all. It can't even open MS Office documents correctly.
Norton Internet Security/Anti-virus: This thing itself is a virus. It drags your computer down no matter how fast your computer is.
Awful lots of junk softwares whose names you've never heard about.

You cannot even remove all these by re-installing Windows. Because when using the recovery partition/DVD to re-install Windows, all the crap is automatically installed without asking. And the standard Windows partition tool is removed so you cannot make changes to your harddrive partitions before installing Windows.

Once you buy an HP computer, your computer is totally raped by HP. It is NOT personal at all.

Traditional Chinese & Simplified Chinese (繁體字 & 简体字)

Before yesterday's debate about these two types of Chinese at LXP, I didn't know that this problem bothers some people and that Traditional Chinese writers can read Simplified Chinese easily.

Highlights of the debate:

Traditional side: Traditional Chinese is the carrier of the 5000-year-long Chinese culture. Ancient Chinese articles, poems, and books are written in Traditional Chinese. A lot of the cultural essence is thrown away in Simplified Chinese.
Simplified side: Simplified Chinese can be written efficiently. Modern society's economy benefits from efficiency. Therefore, Simplified Chinese is more suitable for economy development, especially when you want to do business with the billion-population Mainland China, where people mainly use Simplified Chinese. For those who care about the lost culture, they can learn Traditional Chinese to get it back.

Traditional side: Since Simplified Chinese is derived from Traditional Chinese, if you only know Traditional Chinese, you can still read Simplified Chinese without much effort, but if you only know Simplified Chinese, you probably have difficulty reading Traditional Chinese.
Simplified side: Simplified Chinese is easier to learn and thus easier to attract learners from all over the world, while the complexity of Traditional Chinese scares away a chunk of potential learners.

Traditional side: The Traditional character of "love", "愛", contains the "heart" character "心", while there's no "heart" in the Simplified character. Without a heart, how can you love?
Simplified side: The Simplified version "爱" has a "friend", "友", on the bottom. And a friend is whom you give love to.

My opinion: Decades ago, it might not be the best idea to simplify Chinese, but as it is already simplified today, people in Mainland China should keep using it. Although Traditional Chinese is the cultural carrier of the past thousands of years, Simplified Chinese has carried the culture of the past decades and will carry more in future. At the same time, Traditional Chinese regions should keep using Traditional Chinese so as to preserve and enrich the culture in it. Changing to Simplified Chinese is futile for them. I believe that for a very long time, if not forever, both types of Chinese will coexist and chip in the Chinese culture together. I'm glad that in Chinese classes students can use whichever type of Chinese they like.

Back from Yosemite

Reading a ton of emails and paper mails accumulated these days. Gonna organize the photos soon.

Congratulations to Paul and Catherine again

Attended their wedding on March 8th. I like the American style wedding. It's simple but romantic. I don't know if it's true but in my impression, Chinese style wedding is complicated and makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I'm just scared by the movie The Wedding Banquet .

Anyway, I'm very happy for Paul and Catherine. Wish their sweet marriage lasts forever.

Interstate 405

(taken on 2/18/2008)

Lunar eclipse near Lantern Festival

There'll be a lunar eclipse this evening in PST. At the same time in China, it's Feb. 21st, or the 15th of the 1st month in lunar calendar, which is the Lantern Festival (Yuanxiao Festival). It's time to eat Tangyuan.

For more information about the lunar eclipse, please visit:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/LEmono/TLE2008Feb21/TLE2008Feb21.html

What happened to my broken bike?

Put my broken bike outside for a few months, unlocked. Now there's a wheel left there. I'm very curious about what happened.

Valentine's Day

Still single this year. Played DDR and watched a movie with Christine, boycotting Valentine's Day together. Ended up having had a lot of fun. Then had a nice Cantonese dinner with zyx. I said to him, "inviting me for dinner on this day is not a good thing. haha." Because that implied that he's single, too. Anyway, wish all my single friends find their significant others in 2008.

White mountains seen from Palo Verde

(taken on Jan. 26, 2008)

Second attempt of seafood blend

Still not as successful as I expected. Need more experience.

Saw this wonderful video randomly

Him & Her
- UCI ROCSA

[Flash contained, read the original topic to see]

一個人代表著些什麼
看著每個人跟我走著不同的方向
是否意謂著自己的孤獨

我一個人
代表著一個人吃飯、上課、開車
朋友我有只是我還是孤獨一個人
成雙成對的是我不懂的世界
所以一個人的生活過了許多年
朋友總是說 “Hey…快去找一個！”
那我想問那另一個他在哪？

我一個人
代表著一個人吃飯、上課、開車
朋友我有只是他們不懂笑容下的一個人
情侶生活是我不敢懂的世界
因為害怕被傷害與拒絕
但朋友跟我說 “Hey man, come on…放手一博吧！”
那我想問我的她在哪？

到底什麼是孤獨
而什麼又是寂寞
人人的成雙成對
是否告訴著這些單身的人們
我們都需要一個能夠陪伴的人
理性的我們總是讓緣分輕易的溜走
只是人的一生最好還是大膽的放手一次
所以應該要大聲說 “我想要戀愛！”

那對的人會在哪
他/她是否已經出現

又或著我必須主動尋找自己的緣分

一個人將不會再是一個人
1 + 1 = 2
那這一個人是否就在眼前呢？

First attempt of seafood blend

Not totally successful, but definitely got some important experience. I will publish a recipe when it's mature.

Korean BBQ shopping

Felix to the seller: Can I smell the beef?
Seller: ****** (I had no idea what he was talking about)
Felix: (pointing to his nose) Smell.
Seller: ******

Felix to me: You talk to him.
I: I don't speak Korean.
Felix: Just use Mandarin.

I to the seller: Do you speak Chinese?
Seller: ...?
I: Do ... you ... speak ... Chinese?
Seller: No. Korea.

We then gave up the smelling.

Felix to the seller: Twelve pounds of the beef, please.
Seller: Two?
Felix: Twelve.
Seller: Two?
Felix: Twelve.
Seller: Twenty?

Fortunately another Korean buyer came by and translated for us.

Mountains covered with snow seen from Palo Verde

Take-home finals are not less painful

than in-class ones.

Chinese appeared in student homework again

Some weeks ago, a student wrote a "解" in his homework. This time, another student wrote his name in Chinese in his homework. I had no problem recognizing that, but I was very curious if the professor had any problem when trying to hand the homework back.

Unbelievable alert for Orange County -- flash flood watch

It's been raining all day today, in this dry place that hardly rains.

These days, I was complaining that this place was sunny everyday. I didn't expect the sky responded so quickly.

In the days after I just came to this place, I kept carrying an umbrella wherever I went, as I did in China. Later I was laughed at by a couple people and I really realized it's totally useless, so I put it somewhere. As a result, when it's raining this morning, I don't even know where my umbrella is. Therefore, I had to swim to campus to attend my classes.

It's reported that flash flood watch remains in effect until 4am PST Saturday. Hopefully tomorrow will be sunny again. Actually sunshine with scattered clouds is my favorite weather.

Time to learn some new recipe

Otherwise I have nothing new to bring for future potlucks. Next I'm probably going to learn Christy's recipe of Chinese sausage and Chinese bacon with rice.

Destiny

I don't believe in any god right now, but I do believe in destiny. If something is not in your destiny, you won't get it, no matter how hard you work and try. The Chinese idiom "一分耕耘，一分收獲"⁽¹⁾ is only a linear approximation. Another Chinese idiom "人算不如天算"⁽²⁾ tells us the truth. Sometimes people use heroes overcoming obstacles as examples of conquering destinies. However, in my opinion, their successes in overcoming the obstacles are in their destinies. They didn't conquer their destinies at all.

(1) Refer to English translation of "一分耕耘，一分收獲" in Wiktionary
(2) Refer to English translation of "人算不如天算" in Wiktionary

Guess

I encountered a PDE that I didn't know how to solve. So I asked a few math students, and got this conversation always:

I: How to solve this equation?
S/he: Try to guess a solution.
I: ...

Thanksgiving dinner

A corner of Palo Verde. Shot on the way to the dinner.

I'm thankful for being alive.

The paradox of our times

by Jeff Dickson

The paradox of our time in history is that
we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers;
wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.

We spend more, but have less;
we buy more but enjoy it less.

We have bigger houses and smaller families;
more conveniences, but less time.

We have more degrees, but less sense;
more knowledge, but less judgment;
more experts, but more problems;
more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly,
laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry too quickly,
stay up too late, get up too tired,
read too seldom, watch TV too much,
and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.

We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life;
we've added years to life, not life to years.

We've been all the way to the moon and back,
but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor.

Country names in English are funny

There's one country named Hungary and one named Turkey. If you are hungry, you can eat turkey.

People of Poland are called Poles. I want to ask: what are the orders and the residues of them?

New: foosball in ARC

Two days ago I noticed that the ARC introduced a new foosball table on the 2nd floor. Anybody wants to play, please call me.

解

I was grading the students' homework. Everything was in English, which is normal. Suddenly a Chinese character "解", which means solution, came into my eyes. A Chinese student did his whole homework in English except that he wrote this character instead of "solution" in one problem.

Actually I miss that character. I haven't seen or used it for a long time.