Yes, I can "Fly"

Earlier this month, I visited Southern part of USA, and now I am in Taiwan.   I need catch up on some travel blogs.  During the US driving trip, I rented a car in New Orleans, and drove the SE region.  I visited Savannah (Georgia), Charleston (South Carolina), Biltmore Estate, Outer Bank and Kitty Hawk (North Carolina) and Fisherman Island (Virginia).  I am describing the Kitty Hawk stop today, the highlight of the trip to me, and will detail the other stops later.

 As some of you already know, Kitty Hawk is the place where the airplane was invented almost 110 years ago.   The Wright Brothers flew the world’s first successful heavier-than-air plane here. All the planes in the world now are based on the concept they invented.

This is the main museum building.

There are several models of the planes the Wright Brothers test flew. 

During the day, there are talks and movies.  She was quite a good speaker and demonstrated the three smart inventions ideas by the Wright Brothers.   They owned a bicycle renting shop in Ohio, and many of the parts of the plane were actually bike parts. 

This is another building which house hands-on exhibits and a hall that show movies. 

This is a life-size model of the sheds that the Wright Brothers braved the wind and cold weather for several years before finally they succeeded.  They lived in Ohio, and would travel here (three train rides and two ferry rides away) and stayed here for a month or so every year to try out their ideas.  That must be an expensive hobby.  They selected here because it is remote (so the press would not know of their failed attempts), windy (needed to fly gliders that would help them finetune the shape of the plane and mechanical controls), and sandy ( to soften the crash landings). 

The rock at the front marks the starting place where they launched the flights.  The rocks further away marked the distances of their flight attempts.  The first rock was about 100 ft., the next 120 ft and so on.  If you look closely, there is a rock way at the end which marked the final attempt, about 850 ft away.  

It was starting to rain hard, and everyone went back to the museum buildings.  I was alone, and I start to  imagine the feeling of the history-making event over 100 years ago and how it changed the world. I wanted to make the most of my visit.   I walked from the launch point to the first marker.  I was soaking wet from the rain!   Then I decided to walk all the way to the 850 foot mark.  Suddenly, I did not know what made me do it.  I stretched my hands wide to my side, pretending they were wings, and imagined myself flying along with the Wright Brothers.  I would close my eyes briefly to sense the wind sound blowing by, and start running faster and faster.  It was fun!   I told myself, think back 100 years and feel the experience of first man in the world flying. That is the excitement moment of a "virgin" experience? lol.  Some people must have thought I was crazy!  A grown man acted like a kid, with arms outstretched, pretending to be a plane, hehe. Think back, I am smiling, as it was great fun feeling.  I was in my own little world, enjoying the moment.

Afterwards, I walked back a hundred feet and video tape the path so I can share with my Xanga friends. Here is the video!  Can you imaging yourself flying with me on our first flight of mankind? lol.

Here is the marker at the 852 ft location!  Welcome to the Stevew918 airline.  Safe landing!  Hope you enjoyed the trip!

(Note from yesterday: oops, run out of time to complete blog, will update later today.) 

travel

I plan to take it easy for the next several months and travel some.

Tuesday, flying to New Orleans and spend 10 days drivig through the southeast:  Louisiana, Georgia, North and South Carolina.  Never been to N. C and S. C.  Any suggestions of things to see?

Then after three days of rest, join a 10 days tour of Taiwan, followed by 12 days in Hong Kong to see my mom.  She jumped for joy when she heard I was going to be in HK for almost 2 weeks. 

On the horizon, Greece cruise, China tour, South America tour. East Europe tour. and more to come, hehe.  Life is good!

where are you, Steve?

It has been a few months since I last wrote a blog because it has been overwhelmingly busy for me. I do owe you, all my Xanga friends an apology. Thanks for those who sent me messages asking me how I have been.  It is surely nice to be back in the blog world.  

After I announced my departure from the company, my boss and her boss panicked a bit.  I started to complete some projects and passing other projects to coworkers.  On my last day at work, my boss and her boss flew in from out-of-state to have lunch with me.  The boss's boss kept asking if I would be interested to be a consultant for them someday.  I told him I would treated him as a preferred customer.  He smiled braadly, and showed a sign of relief.  I have been approached by other companies to consult on project, and university to teach a class. But I have been taking it easy, catching up with personal stuff first.

In the mean time, I decided to sell my condo in San Francisco Bay area and moved back to Los Angeles, Orange county area.  First, I found an real estate agent, decided on the price, and staged the place for open house. Good news was someone made an offered before we had the open house.  I got the price I wanted which is more than others sold in the building for the last 12 months. Guess the location and view of my condo is great, and I staged it top nodge, and of course, I was lucky.  The escrow was closed within 21 days and I had to coordinate moving all my things.   Now I have settled in Orange County area in the same house where I used to live. A lot of packing, and unpacking, What a mess!

Interestingly that I had forced all these recent changes.  Big. big changes at that,  From now on, my life direction is in my hands!  Sucesses or failures will be in my own hands.  Kind of mildly scary and yet excited.

Independence Day

First, wish all a Happy July 4th Independence Day! 

I have decided to declare my independence from my current job.  It seems I do not have any life, besides work,  most of this year.  I need my life and sanity back.  Although my relationship with my boss has been getting much better, but that has been taking way too much of my sacrifice to achieve that. 

Hence, after months' of soul searching, I will be writing an email to my boss, right after this blog, that my last day of work will be July 31.  She would be pissed if she finds out that you, my Xanga friends, know about this before she does.  

Wish me luck, and crossing my fingers regarding my decision on becoming an independent consultant!

Eat out Tips

I got the following list  from Yahoo, and want to share with you.   Do you have other eating out tips to share?

1. Avoid eating out on holidays and Saturday nights. The sheer volume of customers guarantees that most kitchens will be pushed beyond their ability to produce a high-quality dish.

2. There are almost never any sick days in the restaurant business. A busboy with a kid to support isn't going to stay home and miss out on $100 because he's got strep throat. And these are the people handling your food.

3. When customers' dissatisfaction devolves into personal attacks, adulterating food or drink is a convenient way for servers to exact covert vengeance. Some waiters can and do spit in people's food.

4. Never say "I'm friends with the owner." Restaurant owners don't have friends. This marks you as a clueless poseur the moment you walk in the door.

5. Treat others as you want to be treated. (Yes, people need to be reminded of this.)

6. Don't snap your fingers to get our attention. Remember, we have shears that cut through bone in the kitchen.

7. Don't order meals that aren't on the menu. You're forcing the chef to cook something he doesn't make on a regular basis. If he makes the same entrée 10,000 times a month, the odds are good that the dish will be a home run every time.

8. Splitting entrées is okay, but don't ask for water, lemon, and sugar so you can make your own lemonade. What's next, grapes so you can press your own wine?

9. If you find a waiter you like, always ask to be seated in his or her section. Tell all your friends so they'll start asking for that server as well. You've just made that waiter look indispensable to the owner. The server will be grateful and take good care of you.

10. If you can't afford to leave a tip, you can't afford to eat in the restaurant. Servers could be giving 20 to 40 percent to the busboys, bartenders, maître d', or hostess.

11. Always examine the check. Sometimes large parties are unaware that a gratuity has been added to the bill, so they tip on top of it. Waiters "facilitate" this error. It's dishonest, it's wrong-and I did it all the time.

12. If you want to hang out, that's fine. But increase the tip to make up for money the server would have made if he or she had had another seating at that table.

13. Never, ever come in 15 minutes before closing time. The cooks are tired and will cook your dinner right away. So while you're chitchatting over salads, your entrées will be languishing under the heat lamp while the dishwasher is spraying industrial-strength, carcinogenic cleaning solvents in their immediate vicinity.

From Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip-Confessions of a Cynical Waiter by The Waiter (Ecco/HarperCollins)

I do not have much time lately to eat out or compose sensible blogs.  Here is a piece just to tell you I am still alive,  .   Hopefully things will change soon on the work-life, and I will have time for my blog-life.