Broke Back Mountain Lady

From rootsgpk.blogspot.com

A successful rancher died and left everything to his devoted wife. She was determined to keep the ranch, but knew very little about ranching, so she placed an ad in the newspaper for a ranch hand.

Two cowboys applied for the job. One was gay and the other a drunk.

She thought long and hard about it, and when no one else applied she decided to hire the gay guy, figuring it would be safer to have him around the house than the drunk.

He proved to be a hard worker who put in long hours every day and knew a lot about ranching.

For weeks the two of them worked hard and the ranch was doing very well.

Then one day, the rancher's widow said 'You have done a really good job, and the ranch looks great. You should go into town and kick up your heels.'

The hired hand readily agreed and went into town on Saturday night.

He returned around 2:30 am, and upon entering the room, he found the rancher's widow sitting by the fireplace with a glass of wine, waiting for him.

She quietly called him over to her.

'Unbutton my blouse and take it off,' she said. Trembling, he did as she directed.

'Now take off my boots.' He did as she asked, ever so slowly.

'Now take off my socks.' He removed each gently and placed them neatly by her boots.

'Now take off my skirt.' He slowly unbuttoned it, constantly watching her eyes in the firelight.

'Now take off my bra.' Again, with trembling hands did as he was told and dropped it to the floor.

Then she looked at him and said: 'If you ever wear my clothes into town again, you're fired!'

My present position

42°39'1.36"N, 70°49'18.33"W

Squash rackets

I have finally turned in both demo rackets. I like the Head Nano Ti120, but I figured it is still a bit too bouncy for control. I will get use to it but it will take some time. In fact, I am getting a really good feel with my Liquid Metal 150. Just the right amount of power and very good control. I can put the ball any where I aim it most the time these days, and put off my squash buddies quite a bit. So I decided to buy the same racket as a backup, but squashgear.com does not sell it anymore. I turned to the 120 of the same series, which Paul is using. It feels pretty much like my 150 but lighter in weight. Even better for touches.

Workaholic

This morning my boss asked me why I worked extra hard on this project. I told him the discovery I made was very interesting, and I wanted to finished the product development as soon as I could so that I could work on the science.

I worked into late hours at night 7 days a week these days. My only diversion is squash. Four times a week, one hour at a time. Sophie starts calling me workaholic now.

Kinship

Junichi's wife and son came over and wrapped up Junichi's belongs and apartment last week. I met them briefly at work. Junichi's wife looked weak but in good spirit. His son was younger than I thought. She said her cancer was almost gone and she was feeling alright. She was quite happy when she told me that her daughter is having another baby. Kinship after all is the strength that gives us strength amid tides and storms.

Cat quotes

Sophie loves cats. Someone gave her a calendar called "Utterly Adorable Cats 2008".

For January, it says "I own the house - they just pay the mortgage."

A second thought

During coffee time I picked up an old issue of Nature (Feb 8, 2008). There has been a proposition of a presidential debate of Science (www.sciencedebate2008.com) wherein the US presidential candidates debate their stands in science topics ranging from climate change and teaching intelligent design in science class. Scientists of high-profile and others have signed for the good cause. David Goldston, now a visiting professor at Harvard University, questions in his column whether it is appropriate to put science, especially funding appropriation into the spotlight at such a national level. He points out that National Science Foundation (NSF) has been enjoying a relatively moderate and healthy growth of budget and peaceful operation, whereas NASA stands at the other extreme where not only its budget but almost every moves are constantly monitored under the microscopes of the congress and the public. Goldston also pointed out that the doubling of NIH's budget from 1998 to 2003 was aggravated by political pressure, resulting in a surge in research money and an inflated biomedical research community now complaining insufficient funding and lack of new researchers.

Goldston instead proposes to have a debate of policy on science and have the candidates reinstate the integrity of science in devising policies, an issue Bush infuriated scientists at home and abroad and the major reason of this advocation for a presidential science debate, within one of the national presidential debates. He believes that categorizing science funding as a domestic spending will do more good to the scientific community than turning it into a politics football.

ATG

Parenting

Choices

When you look back, how your life unfolds most the time does not depend on your capability but the choices you made. You choose to sit by the window on the bus; you choose to go out with this girl. Even if you thought you didn't have a choice but take your only job offer, you had made the choice to apply for it to begin with. These choices may take you down a very different path, or a few paths actually go to the same place. Sometime you cannot see where the path leads you to, but most the time you can get a rough idea where it takes you. But you have no idea whether you are going to have a relax scenery stroll or an unpleasant walk across the dumpsters. And you can choose to go all the way down the path, take a turn at the cross-road or even walk back to where you start and make another choice. There is no correct path, only one that suits you and makes you happy. It is all about choice. The more choices you have made, and if you look back and think enough about them, the wiser you will become.

Walking again

I went back to the squash court today after over a week's break. My flu was not cleared but I felt I should do something to boost my circulation. I came short of breath, mostly because I couldn't breath with my nose properly and my chest couldn't expand as well as it should be, and I started sweating from the back of my neck but not the forehead. These are all indicative I was still not recovered, and I gave 3 games away to Joe. I usually lose 1 or 2 to him in 6 games. But I felt whole lot better after playing. The day when I could just play squash for an hour or two and recover from a flu has long gone. And it seems that I am needing more and more time to recover. Luckily, I am still getting knocked down by flu less than once a year.

Finally I ordered two demo rackets from squashgear.com today. They cost $18 + $5 for shipping. It is a very good and new service from them. You would definitely want to try them out before spending > $120 for a piece.


Head Nano Ti 120


Dunlop Aerogel Pro GT

Teaching material

Just come across a squash video on youtube. Jonathan Power vs Amr Shabana. Prabably the Wind City Open in 2007. It is a fantastic rally with a beautiful finish. Good footwork, good tactics. Every serious squash player should look and learn.

集三十年鏗鏘

讀蘋果日報，才知道今天（2008年3月5日）是香港電台的《鏗鏘集》的三十周年。小時候家中電視從六點半新聞開始長開，到聽完「歡樂今宵，再會。各位觀眾，晚...安...」才關上。星期一至五的電視劇我不一定都追看，但星期天晚上的《鏗鏘集》我倒很少錯過。還不到十歲我便很喜歡看它。我已經記不起有那一集特別令我印象深刻，但從十多年的浸淫當中，我學到了了解事情的背景、細心聆聽、觀察、和理性分析的重要。

三十年是一段不短的時間，《鏗鏘集》不但記錄了香港的變遷，也記錄了這幾十年來我們從關心自身變成也關心世界。而我也覺得自己不僅僅是一個香港人，而是屬於這個世界的一個人。

雖然現在香港電台已把近年的《鏗鏘集》和其他節目放在網上，任何時間都可以看，但它的streeming很不暢順，節目頭幾分鐘花了十多分鐘也下載不了，而且人不在香港，也沒有那股勁看香港的電視節目。

《鏗鏘集》仍不斷獲得香港和外國的電視紀實節目的獎項。我希望這個高水準的節目可以延續下去，繼續陪養出理性的下一代和優秀的記者。這有賴香港電台能褪變成BBC一樣由納稅人支持但編輯獨立和立場中立的廣播機構。BBC是英國人引以為傲的文化財產，希望香港電台也能成為令香港人驕傲的電台。

Breeding ground

I got cold sores on my lips and inside my noses. They are Herpes simplex virus infections. Today I saw a doctor and she said I might have it all the time and they only grew crazily now because I was having a flu (and/or stomach flu, i.e. norovirus) such that my immunity was low. She told me to buy some Abreva from the pharmacy, and that turned out to cost $20 a piece.

Influenza and/or norovirus + HSV. I am still having indigestion and that makes me even weaker to fight these viruses. I am becoming a breeding ground of viruses, and telling everyone to stay away from me.

Sicked

I am quite foreseeing to spend only 1 day in the mountain. Today I have fever and stuffed stomach, sore muscle and general weakness. I was thinking whether I had eaten too much beef steak last night after skiing. I had 2 and a half pieces of roast beef as big as 1 feet long... The beef was awesome.. But I forgot I use to have stuff stomach and fever-like symptoms if I eat too much of protein at a time. I look up wikipedia and my symptoms quite match those of Norovirus infection, except that I don't have diarrhea or abdominal pain.

Sign.. my fever was gone after sleeping through the morning and eating a banana and a few dried plums. But then I wanted to eat more and ate a cup of yogurt. That was a mistake.. My stomach is still unable to handle so much of milk protein... and I am having fever and stuffed stomach again...

The good news is the disease is self-limiting and only lethal to children and elderlies and immunologically compromised people. I think I do not fall into any of these categories yet. I hope miso soap and warm water can make me heal faster. Even at home I was cold all day and only feel warm enough after I had put on my down jacket zipped.

Sunday River is awesome!

Today is our company's ski trip. This year we went to Sunday River in Maine, about 3 hours from us. This is my 4th time here and I went there with Sue just a couple of months ago. But this time I had an ambitious plan. Sunday River has green trails running down from two of its summits, and I wanted to take as many of them as possible.

So in the morning I took almost all the green and blue trails steaming out from Lift 2 as a warm up. Lift 2 is the most used left in Sunday River because it is located right outside the rental center and cafeteria. In the afternoon, I went up to the top of Spruce peak and then Jordan Bowl with a bunch of friends and came down along the greens. The mountains here in New England is no comparison with those in the Alps, but on the top of the mountains the view is awesome. The trails are easy and you can finally spend more time skiing than riding on the lift. The weather was perfect. Sunny, no clouds, not too cold, around -10degC. Just cold enough so that I didn't sweat. I only hope there could have been a thicker layer of new snow.

The lifts close at 4 pm. Only 20 minutes before that I found an awesome green trail that I missed in the morning. It is a branch half-way down from Left 2. The trail, called Spectator, runs right underneath Lift 2. It is very narrow, with the lift poles in the middle and flanked by trees. The slope itself is not steep but you can still go pretty fast. With the tight space I needed to shift my balance every another second to control my speed. With the lift running above your head it just feels so exciting. I managed to get on the lift before it closed and took another run down the Spectator. Awesome!


I could have stayed over the weekend and ski Saturday and Sunday, butI figured I should take it easy and not to disappoint my squash buddy on Monday. So I just skied for the day and I will get some rest over the weekend.

P.S. It was my 5th ski and the first time not falling even once. I am feeling more comfortable to bring my camera and take more pictures on my next ski trip.

My take on the candidates

I got in touch of a middle school classmate on Facebook. We had not seen each other after parting from school. She is now a mother of 2 and lives in Toronto, Canada.

She asked me whether I could vote in the presidential election and what was my take on the party nominees. Here is what I told her:

I am not a citizen so I can't vote. Huckabee is a joke. Aren't all Americans sinners to need a preacher as their president?? John McCain is moderate, but he needs to get Huckabee as his running mate in order to get support from the party. But he is too old. If he dies during his term, Huckabee will be the president. So McCain is also a no go. Obama can speak, and he listens too. I think it is the most important quality for a president. Plus, being a black, he can change the view of the world about the US. But he seems to be not living long.. maybe he will get assassinated, as predicted by someone in the press. Clinton is just a careful politician. But either Obama or Clinton will probably get John Edwards as his/her running mate. So I will go for the Democrat and support Obama. Even he really got killed John Edwards would be a good replacement.

Eye Candy

About Palm Centro I talked about yesterday, it is going to HK market also!! I doubt who in the right mind/taste in HK will buy it, given plenty of better looking and better equipped choices around. The model girl at the press release is cute though.

Bondage

One day, a man came home and was greeted by his wife dressed in a very sexy nightie.
'Tie me up,' she purred, 'and you can do anything you want.'
So he tied her up and went golfing.

Sept 11 Fallout