Winter's here..

Hi guys! Sorry for the long hiatus from updating my blog.

Anyway, I've been around. Just that I didn't have the desire to update this blog. I can't even pin point why the lack of desire but many times I wanted to write something, I just ended up watching some tv shows and forgot about what I wanted to write.

So, enough is enough, instead of watching the tv exclusively, I decided to write this post while watching the tv. Problem solved. Currently, I'm watching the New England Pats kicking the Tennessee Titan's ass, badly. Not sure if it's really the weather, but Titan is just playing so badly that it's not even fun to watch.

Anyway, lately, life's been pretty routine. Work is work, exciting and frustrating at the same time. There's the ups and downs as expected. Other than that, there's the studying. I've been going into office at 6, study til 9/10 for the last 2+ months. Sometimes, there's the additional hour or two at night. So, with all that, the gym sessions are getting less.

Few weeks back, I went to DC for an exam seminar. It was a 5-day seminar, Friday through Tuesday. It was rather rough as I flew down to DC on Friday morning, and flew back on Tuesday afternoon. So, woke up at 2.30am of that Friday, get ready and all, drove to the airport and reaching there at around 4am for my 6am flight. Got into DC at about 7.50am and caught the shuttle that took me to Hyatt Reston, where the seminar was. Everything went smoothly. Checked into my room at lunch. First day was not too bad, other than I had 4 coffee throughout the day. Was too lazy and tired to venture out to get dinner, hence, grabbed dinner at Panera and used their wi-fi to check my work email and stuff, and drop dead at 8.30pm. At first, I was planning to wake up early the next day to go to the gym, but I was just too tired. For the next 3.5 days, it was pretty much breakfast, seminar, lunch, seminar, dinner. Repeat.

It was a good 'break' away from work, and to eat out for dinner every night. But, I'm not sure if that's what I can do all the time (which will be very likely if I decide to pursue a job with in the actuarial consulting line.) Part of me want something like that, to be on the run, fast-pace work kinda life, but a part of me also want something more constant, something that I can return to after work. Yeah, that's what keeping me up at night (not really, but that's what on my mind.)

Also, seems like the weather totally skipped Fall, and it's already Winter. It snowed last Thursday night (Oct 15th) and it's snowing heavily outside at the moment (Oct. 18th). Go figure.

I'll be flying back to Ann Arbor this Friday for the Math Career Conference, recruiting effort for my company. It's gonna be fun, to be able to go back to Ann Arbor since leaving close to 1.5 years ago right after graduation in April 2008. So, will be able to see a bunch of my friends and few professors!

Also, I bought tickets to fly home for CNY next year! Will be home for 2 weeks! That's only 3.5 months away. Excited!

That's all for now! Take care guys!

At last...

After a long journey, I'm finally home. So, I left Boston Logan International Airport at 8am on Friday, Jan 16th.
1st Flight to Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport.
2nd Flight to Narita/Japan International Airport. That's a killer long-haul, close to 13 hours. Left there at 1pm on Friday, Jan 16th.
3rd Flight to Singapore, Changi International Airport. That's the other long one, about 8 hours. Left there at 6.45am on Sunday, Jan 18th. (Saturday was lost in the flight, and in the 13 time zone difference).
4th Flight to KLIA. That's the most ridiculous one, considering the actual flight time was less than 30 minutes. And I waited 6 hours for this flight. Seriously, someone need to introduce a flight between Singapore and KL at 2 in the morning. Looking at the number of people who spent the night in the airport, I bet there's a market for this flight.
Oh yeah, total number of cups of coffee over the entire trip - 5.


Now, more about these flights themselves. First off, Northwest Airlines had a bad reputation when it comes to international flights, and they live up to their reputation. Just to be diplomatic, I should start with something good about Northwest to say. All the flights were actually on time, if not earlier that schedule. Kudos to them on that. BUT, I seriously would rather pay the couple hundred bucks more for, a VOD screen - they didn't have it for the Trans-Pacific flight. And, 2nd, and probably the bigger problem is, they charge for booze. Double no-no. As I can't sleep on the plane, even though I was dead tired (I thought that by pulling an all nighter before the flight will strain me enough to knock me off on the plane - note to self - bad idea). So, even without sleep for the last 27 hours prior to taking my first flight, and through all the series of flight, I might have gotten a total of 5 hours of sleep out of the past 48 hours. Bad...

Next on to the flight food. I didn't expect much to begin with, and they didn't disappoint or amaze me either. At least, they didn't try to achieve too much and fall flat on their face. They just prepare the simplest and blandest food, to provide the carbs one need to survive and be contented about it.

And, need to end on a positive note. Per previously mentioned, there are many challenges that Northwest can work on to improve the quality of their service, they did try to cover all the bases, by meeting all the needs one need to survive the trip. The constant offering of liquids is really a plus. Too bad I was sitting in the middle seat and didn't dare to hydrate myself too much, or I will have to trouble the person sitting next to me to give way everytime I need to go. Another surprising thing was, there weren't any crying babies that chalk up more points for me to consider being a bachelor for life on the plane. So, good job, mommies, or should I be thankful to the babies instead. Or maybe the inventor of the baby pacifier.

So, without a VOD screen for 13 hours, and not able to sleep, I had to resort to my plan B.
Now, I'm pretty confident in solving a Rubik's cube. Just need to fine tune my skills more and be more efficient with my algorithms and I should be able to move on to the 4X4X4 cube.

I read few more pages of the book.

I read a paper on Exposure Bases by Bouska. (Study material for exam 5).

And I solved few more sudokus on my Nintendo DS.

Last but not least...
Food... Malaysia, foodie's paraside. So, my parents and brother Gary picked me up from the airport, and we went to have dim sum for brunch, even before I went home. After that, in the afternoon, I sampled some durian, and for dinner, had Bak Kut Teh. A pretty solid line-up for a first day, and definitely not for the faint-hearted.

And with that, the menu for the next 2 days were already planned. Breakfast - Nasi Lemak, Lunch - paper-wrapped chicken and yong taufoo, Dinner - somewhere in Kajang (not gonna be satay though)...

Nothing has changed much back home. It still gives me the welcoming feeling and, not sure if I was that exhausted or what, but, I had no problem falling asleep in my room at all. And 1 thing is definitely real, the 80+ degree weather (Fahrenheit) is real.

Flying home...

After a long 2 years and 5 months, I'm flying home again. Come to think about it, this might be the longest time i've been away from home.

Well well well... Can't wait to see what's different and what's still the same. :-)

It's a long journey though. But, I'm prepared. With a book, a couple papers (study material for exam 5), a 3X3 Rubik's cube, Nintendo DS and my iPod shuffle (my 3.5 year old iPod died a couple weeks ago).

Spring Break 2008...part 3 (Grand Canyon, AZ -> Las Vegas, NV : 02/27/2008 - 02/29/2008)

Part 3:

Day 6(02/27/2008):

So, the day started early, really early, because we needed to reach the airport at 9ish for Keng Yang's flight at 11.30am flight. Not too bad that the flight's at 11.30am. But too bad that we were 200+ miles away from Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. So, to be safe, very safe, we decided to take off from Grand Canyon, AZ at 4am. YES, 4 AM (Mountain timezone). So, we have more than 6 hours to make sure we make it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.


Also, it was a really cold morning. Checkout the snowflakes on my windshield.

Somehow, we managed to make it in slightly less than 5 hours because we didn't have to stop for anything, other than a little bit of gas. Because of driving, I missed the star-filled skies! As it was there wasn't much light pollution driving from Grand Canyon, AZ to Las Vegas, NV, star gazing must be great, and the sky was clear too. KENG YANG, I blamed you for this. And all this while, you were sleeping at the back. ;-) Just kidding.

So, we made it to the airport at 7.45am. So, it will be too long a wait for our friend, and we were pretty hungry, so we decided to go for breakfast and come back later. At first, we were thinking about some breakfast buffet, then, I remembered most of us have never been to IHOP, so, I decided to go to IHOP instead. And, after some turning around, we found one right next to the hotel we will be staying at for the next 2 nights, Stratosphere. So, after 4/5 cups of coffee, a huge omelet and a stack of pancakes, I'm all recharged. And others too had their stack of pancakes and whatnot, at about 9.30am, we went back to the airport to drop our 'burden' down. Did I mention where he is going? Oh, for a job interview. All the best!
Stratosphere tower.

Driving down Las Vegas Boulevard. MGM Grand.
New York, New York.
Bellagio, with the infamous fountain.

So, after that, we went back to our hotel and try our luck on getting an early check-in. After standing in-line for awhile, (I tried to self-check-in kiosk, but it didn't give me the non-smoking room option); hence, the waiting in-line. So, we got our room at about 11am.
Me, waiting in line.

SWEET! After some rest, we went to check out the casino. It was alright, but I don't like the 2nd-hand smoke. My throat was irritated. The reason we chose this hotel, north of the Las Vegas boulevard, was because of the great price for the promotion I found. Not only it was free 2nd night, there were 2 free show tickets and a bunch of coupons in the package. So, we got tickets for the show at night, and then, a couple of us started playing slots. At first, it was just some random slots that I played, then, I discovered the video poker and that was it, before we knew it, we spent like 3 hours playing it in a trance.

Then, it was about time for us to go to the show. It was American Superstars. A show tributes to some of America's best stars: Elvis Presley(wasn't there for our show), Michael Jackson, Tim McGraw, Rod Steward, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, impersonated by some rather talented people. Especially, the Michael Jackson, the moves of the impersonator was amazing. The singing of Christina Aguilera and Tim McGraw impersonators were great too. The Britney Spears' wasn't bad at all. Rod Stewart too was alright.

After that, we decided to walk to Sahara to try out their buffet there because I saw it on an advertisement in the in-flight magazine and it was cheap or something. So, we went. It was like dorm food. (SO, never trust in-flight magazines.)! :P

Then, we went back to our hotel to call it a night. I guessed most of us were so tired that we fell asleep without taking shower. I managed to be the first one among us to fall asleep, quite an achievement for me since I had been having trouble to sleep early and sleep much.


Day 7(02/28/2008):

But, I woke up at 6am, after a shower, I went to play some slots again so that I can accumulate enough points to get a t-shirt. :-P I mean, it's a free t-shirt, and I was only like 10-15 points from getting it. So, $10 later and an hour later, I got the t-shirt. After that, I went to the gym to run off the carbs I'd been piling on from the buffets. And, we were planning to go to a few more buffets before the end of the trip. So, 3 miles later, I went back to our room and others were up and about. We went to the Stratosphere tower as planned. (We got free tickets as hotel guests get to access the tower between 10am - 2pm for free).
Some crazy rides on top of the tower.
View from the top of the tower.

After that, when it was time for lunch, we went out to the central of Las Vegas boulevard, with all the cool hotels and stuff to do all the touristy stuff. From my friends' recommendation, we went to this Japanese Restaurant, Todai for what we considered to be the best buffet of our trip. We enjoyed the sushi and stuff a lot.

The weather was great. Mid 70s in the afternoon.

We concluded that people here loves to read, as most of these magazines racks were empty.

Paris!More of Paris!
And Paris at Night. Viewing from Bellagio.

Then, we walked more. Because of the amount of food we store in our stomach, we were worn off easily. We went back to our hotel for a siesta. Then, Siew Gee and I decided to explore some stuff around Stratosphere. First, because we walked past these aqua-massage machines many times and were tempted by it. So, we finally gave it a try (we had those coupons too). In my opinion, it was not shabby, but, somehow, too noisy for my liking, one suggestion, prolly providing us a pair of headphones with some sort of relaxing music will be great. Then, on the way back, we passed by this oxygen bar, and out of curiosity, and didn't want to go back to our room and rot yet, we decided to give a try as well. The package was a neck and head massage and 30 minutes of inhaling pure oxygen. It was rather corny, having to inhale it through some special tubes, and stuff. Not sure whether it's a psychological effect or physical effect, but I did feel fresher after the session, not to mention $20 poorer, and also, sore from the massage.
From Bellagio, looking to the North of Las Vegas Boulevard.

Poooooofffffffff... The climax of the fountain show. (I had the entire video, but it's 300+ mb, can't seem to get anywhere to host it for me, and I'm too lazy to resize a video.... it takes forever.)
Siew Gee missed her show at Cirque Du Soleil...

Ahhhhhhh!!! The city of Lights...

But, it was rather fun. At night, we went to Bellagio, damn, the hotel was magnificent. We went there for the water fountain show. Then, for some reasons, we decided to walk from there to Excalibur, a good 20-minute walk, with a bunch of Latinos(nothing racist here, but that's who they are...) handing out call-girl cards and promise us a girl in 20 minutes. DAMN, that's even faster than Domino's delivering a pizza. Come on, Domino's, pick up your game.

Luxor... Love the architecture.
So, from Excalibur, we took a tram to Luxor, where we walked around a bit. As we couldn't stomach another buffet (pun intended). We decided to call it a night.

Day 8(02/29/2008):

Last day at Las Vegas, NV. Woke up at 7ish, and went running and soaked up some sun. Well, the weather was great, in the 60-70s. Then, we checked out at about 10.45am from our room, and then, went for the lunch buffet. It was rather good. Ranked 2nd among all the buffets we had on the trip.
Soaking up some sun. That was me.

So, we left for the airport at about 1pm. Because of some rather heavy traffic (Nascar weekend at Vegas I supposed), we arrived at the airport at about 1.30pm. So, for the entire trip, we(I) drove more than 1500 miles. Yup fifteen hundred plus miles.

We were kinda rushed but made it through the security and all for our 3pm flight with 15 minutes to spare. So, I managed to buy a shot glass and a deck of cards as souvenirs. I thing amazes me of this Las Vegas airport is there are slot machines right beside the boarding gates.
Amazing, isn't it?

The flight wasn't bad at all, even though I sat between a huge guy and a big guy. One's a student from U of Michigan - Dearborn, while the other is a Marine on leave, and will be a free man in a month. We had quite a lot to talk about, and it was eye opening to talk to a Marine. Hats off to you, man. He was only a few months older than I am, but, he already served 4 years in the Marines Corp. To make such a huge decision fresh out of high school, and to undergo all the trainings and all. Good man. We talked about a lot of stuff, joked a lot too. And finally, bid each other best of luck once we reach St. Louis, MO. We had a connecting at St. Louis, MO, just a 45 minutes layover.

We reached Ann Arbor at about midnight. Due to the heavy snow storm just before that, the drive back was INSANE. Everybody was going really slow because the condition was extremely bad. I was talking about 25-30 miles/hr slow. And even at that speed, I was having quite some hard time controlling the car. It took us about an hour and a half to drive from the airport to Ann Arbor. Along the way, we saw more than 5 cars skidded off the road, making some 180/270/360 degrees spins. I was so afraid driving, not that I was afraid that I will crash into another car (I was keeping a really safe distance from the car ahead of me), but more so that other cars will rear-end or side-swipe me.

Fortunately, we got back to Ann Arbor without any incident. Got back to my apartment at about 2am. Called home, and called it a night at 3ish. After transferring more than 3Gbs of photos and videos onto my computer.

Overall, it was a great trip! Within my budget, great memories, great companies, and great experience.

What's next? Skiing, skydiving and many more.