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.

★★ 北京时间8月15日晚，在北京工业大学体育馆举行的奥运会羽毛球女双决赛中，中国科技大学人文与社会科学学院科技传播系二年级学生杜婧、于洋以21比 14、21比13的比分击败对手，获得奥运会女双冠军。全国人大常委会副委员长、中国科学院院长路甬祥8月16日致信中国科技大学向杜婧、于洋表示热烈祝贺和诚挚问候，感谢她们为祖国和人民赢得了荣誉。

自从1992年羽毛球进入奥运会以来，只有中韩两个国家染指过奥运女双金牌。从1996年亚特兰特葛菲/顾俊为中国带回第一枚羽毛球金牌后，这一荣誉便再没从中国手中旁落。这是中国羽球队夺得的2008北京奥运会第1金，也是中国代表团在本次奥运会上获得的第26块金牌，同时也为即将迎来的中国科技大学五十周年校庆献上了一份厚礼。

★★ 8月13日晚，中国科大学生于洋、杜婧在2008年北京奥运会羽毛球女子双打半决赛中击败队友魏轶力、张亚雯，进入决赛。8月15日晚21：30，中央电视台第一套节目将现场直播2008年北京奥运会羽毛球女子双打决赛。

另外，于洋与何汉斌配合的混合双打也已经晋级四强。（最后拿了铜牌）

于洋、杜婧是中国科大人文与社会科学学院科技传播系二年级学生，曾代表我校参加2006年全国大学生羽毛球比赛，获得女子双打冠军。作为我国羽毛球女子双打的后起之秀，今年4月，于洋、杜婧的世界积分排名第一。

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。

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]

See also:

• Earthquake Rattles Southern California

• L.A. suburb at quake epicenter gets hard shake

• This is Hollywood, but that shaking wasn't a special effect

• QUAKE'S TRAVEL IMPACTS: Delays but no damage to airports and rails

• `Moderate' Los Angeles Quake Highlights Need for Preparation

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

See also:

• [Vegas+Grand Canyon][D2][Vegas] Stratosphere Tower - standing on the 109th floor of Vegas

• Las Vegas and Grand Canyon (Jul. 11~13, 2008)

See all the photos in the Photo Gallery...

See all the photos in the Photo Gallery...

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

Damn it!

Does he understand?

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.

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...

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

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$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

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• 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.

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.

葢予所至，比好遊者尚不能什一，然視其左右，來而記之者已少；葢其又深，則其至又加少矣。方是時，予之力尚足以入，火尚足以明也。既其出，則或咎其欲出者，而予亦悔其隨之，而不得極乎遊之樂也。於是予有歎焉。古人之觀於天地、山川、草木、蟲魚、鳥獸，往往有得；以其求思之深，而無不在也。夫夷以近，則遊者衆；險以遠，則至者少；世之奇偉瑰怪非常之觀，常在於險遠，而人之所罕至焉；故非有志者，不能至也。有志矣，不隨以止也，然力不足者，亦不能至也；有志與力，而又不隨以怠，至於幽暗昏惑，而無物以相之，亦不能至也。然力足以至焉而不至，於人為可譏，而在己為有悔；盡吾志也，而不能至者，可以無悔矣，其孰能譏之乎？此予之所得也！予於仆碑，又以悲夫古書之不存，後世之謬其傳，而莫能名者，何可勝道也哉！此所以學者不可以不深思而慎取之也。四人者：廬陵蕭君圭君玉；長樂王囘深父；予弟安國平父，安上純父。

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

(taken on 2/18/2008)

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

See also:
Last lunar eclipse I saw in August, 2007

(taken on Jan. 26, 2008)

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

[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？

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

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.

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.

(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

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

I'm thankful for being alive.

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.

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

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

In the evening I parked my bike outside and went to attend the LXP. It's been less than two hours, but when it ended and I got to my bike, it was covered with ash. Holy crap! I don't want to breathe any more, but I have to.

News update: Fire capt: 'A lot of people are going to lose their homes today'

Nearly 250,000 people were forced to flee their homes in San Diego County Monday as about a dozen blazes pushed by hurricane-force winds burned throughout Southern California.

The fires have burned about 100,000 acres in San Diego County, said county Supervisor Ron Roberts. "This is a major emergency," he said.

"We have more houses burning than we have people and engine companies to fight them," said San Diego Fire Captain Lisa Blake. "A lot of people are going to lose their homes today."

About a dozen blazes erupted over the weekend, churned up by the strong Santa Ana winds and made worse because of drought-parched land from the high desert to the Pacific Ocean. Things got worse Monday, when several new fires sprouted and other fires merged, adding to the 40,000 acres — or 62 square miles — that burned over the weekend in seven counties, including Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego.

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Whole story: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/10/22/state/n102418D66.DTL