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So I took 2 days off and had a 5 day weekend. CDMCC and I drove down to Mt. Shasta. The drive wasn’t too bad. It took ~8hrs, though being the driver, it felt a LOT shorter than driving from Berkeley to Monterey Park, which usually takes about 6hrs. We stayed at a place called Fowler’s Campground which has been ‘the place’ for the past 4 years. I went there 2 years ago, but was in Europe last year, so I missed it.

On our drive down, we saw the scariest accident ever. It was like straight out of a movie. A big rig crashes into a SUV (CDMCC thinks it’s a Lincoln Navigator) and the SUV literally flips multiple times. I counted 3, but it was already flipping by the time I saw it. This was on the I-5, about 50miles north of WA’s southern border. It was also during a left curve so we were facing directly into it. There was lumber all over the place and there was big rig that took multiple lanes, so I assumed it was the big rig that hit it.

Some interesting statistics from my Civic’s gasoline mileage:

32.2MPG
38.7MPG
34.8MPG
36.3MPG

I almost broke 40! Darn! I was so close too! I think my Civic’s is suppose to have 30MPG on city roads and 36MPG on freeways. Most of you probably know that Oregon doesn’t have any sales tax, but one interesting fact about Oregon is that all gas stations are full service. You won’t find one that allows self service. However, even with full service, the price per gallon was $2.87. Wow… Gasoline in CA was expensive! I’m not sure if it was because I pumped in the middle of nowhere, but it was priced at $3.31/gallon. This is referring to 87 octane. Price of 87 octane here in Washington is ~$2.97/gallon. Another interesting thing that came up was that we thought how sweet it would be to live in Oregon, but to work in Washington. No state income tax for work and no sales tax for stuff you purchase.

So the remainder of the drive was pretty calm. We arrived at the campsite around 1am and we woke Liam and ChewyDenise up. The rest of the crew showed up the next day which included Lorie and Jeani. Lorie’s roommate Gretchen and her brother Karl also came. We had loads of fun, doing stuff like cooking on top of the campfire, playing card games (asshole, the fool, kings, casino, war, golf, pyramid, race horse, and a couple others I don’t remember on the top of my head), swimming and jumping off waterfalls, sunbathing, making smores, chopping firewood, etc. SFHalcyon ended joining us a day later. We were totally not expecting him to show up, but he did arrive after hiking up Mt. Shasta.

I’ve uploaded all my pictures and videos to: 2006 July 4th Camping Trip. I’ll let the pictures and videos tell the rest of the story. Here are some selected pictures and videos I wanted to share. The videos may take some time to load since I didn’t bother re-encode them into a streamable format. You always have the option to download the video (link beneath the video player) and watch it locally.

Pictures:

Videos:

I will say that the water was a lot colder this year due to the extra snow and the water current was a lot stronger. I somehow managed to scratched myself and sprained my ankle due to the strong current. This was on top of the many bug bites I already received.

All in all, it was a really fun trip. We left around 8:30am on July 4th and we get back around 4:30pm. I was really tired, so I took a shower and went to sleep pretty early, missing all the fireworks.

Guess this may have been an reaction to U.S. Fed set for 17th rate rise: Most analysts expect the Fed to raise the overnight federal funds rate a quarter-percentage point to 5.25 percent, its highest level since March 2001, although a few have speculated about the potential for a half-percentage point move. Just 10 days ago, HSBC bumps their rate to 4.8%. Today, I received an email stating they’ve bumped it again to 5.05%.

But unfortunately, all my money there have been already been withdrawn as down payment for my condo and I don’t see it growing back fast any time soon.

So I just faxed in my signed mortgage application along with the my complete identity:

• last 2 statements from each of my bank account (12 pgs)
• last 2 statements from my brokerage account (22 pgs)
• last 2 paystubs (2 pgs)
• college transcript (2 pgs)
• last 2 years’ W-2 forms (1 pg)
• scan of driver’s license (1 pg)

Wow…

Maybe one day we can do all this through Information Cards. ;p

I thought these sushi race cars were so cute! (from FuzzyWuzzy) They’re even drifting!

Uh oh… Where did one go? He must’ve turned off his headlights (Initial D reference)

Also from 4chan, I saw a link to this video: Top Gear – The Carver. The Carver looks so fun! It’s sorta a car/motorcycle mesh. Apparently there’s these green and red lights that indicate how far you’ve tilted and your goal is to get as many red lights as possible.

Who knew 1lb of pasta was that much pasta? The only pasta I got before was the pasta that came in 20 bags of spaghetti at Costco, and I usually split that into 3 or 4 meals (not too sure how much those weighed). So today, I went to Safeway and they were having 10 box of pasta for $10. Each box was a pound each, so I got 2 boxes of fettuccine, 2 boxes of linguine, and 2 boxes of angel hair and left Safeway only paying $6 total. Haha. I had some lean ground beef I had to get rid of (probably 2 weeks old?).

Anyway, I opened a box of fettuccine and started cooking it. The box of fettuccine seemed pretty small and harmless so I poured the whole thing in. It wasn’t until I poured the pasta into my stir fry pan with meat and pasta sauce that I realized how much pasta there was. So I watched 16 Blocks as I was eating my pasta, and somehow managed to finished the whole thing (I don’t like keeping food overnight nor wasting food). However this has created a problem where 4 hours after I finished the pasta, my stomach still hurts. Ugh…

Who knew 1lb of pasta could be that much? I think I ate like 3 shares of what I’d normally eat. Did I mention my stomach’s still hurting?

So last night I couldn’t fall asleep? Tried to go to bed at 2am, but twisted and turned for over an hour. I finally got out of bed and started to exercise to tire myself out. Did some sit-ups, some push-ups, and some DDR. I was now tired as my eyes were getting heavy into the 7th song of DDR. However, now I was too hot, so wearing a t-shirt and short, I took a stroll outside to cool down which worked wonders. I think I fell asleep the moment I hit the sack when I returned.

So what is causing this insomnia? Could it be the stress? I’m pretty sure it’s not work related as I’ve never had problems falling asleep before. The only conclusion I could come up with is the condo I just purchased, and I guess I’m pretty stressed out after looking at so many houses, already got declined 3x, and finally got my 4th offer accepted. The listing price was at $436,000, but I got it at $421,000. It has 3 bedroom and 2.5 baths and is a pretty nice condo in a pretty neat location. However, I think the thoughts keep on going through my head thinking, what if this isn’t the right house? What would happen if I put in a few extra thousand dollars and gotten the other house? What if I could’ve gotten a better house if I waited? Many many “what if”s are going through my head. Now there’s the finding a mortgage with a cheap interest rate. What if I can’t get a loan? What if I don’t have enough money for the down (although my dad’s assured me today that’s taken care of).

It’s been a pretty scary roller coaster and I think it’s the reason I had insomnia last night. I finally went to bed at 4am and woke up after 12pm.

Criss Angel pulls a lady apart!? (from RayAlome) – the video is both shocking and funny at the same time as the woman splits apart. Was he using midgets?

Cancelling AOL (from /.) – I first heard it from YTMND.com (from RayAlome) over a week ago, but this was finally posted on /. and someone posted the link to Vincent’s blog. You can listen to the recording here. I don’t know if this is real, but for some reason, being able to locate the account with just the name and last 4 digits of his credit card seemed a bit weird. You’d expect him to at least tell the CSR what his primary account’s screenname is. But even so, assuming it’s real, AOL is renown for such tatics. It took me ~15minutes the last time I tried to cancel my account. A bunch of us were having contests on trying to set the record for the quickest cancellation. There was a deal that rewarded us $100 back in college for trying AOL.

Teacher-proof ringtone hits the US (from RayAlome) – British kids were quick to sample the sound and turn it into a ringtone to be used in class – they can hear it, but teachers can’t. Apparently the sound is just car traffic, though I’m not sure what to think about this article. Was this a joke? Is it that adults automatically tune out these sounds?

2006 USA Rock Paper Scissors Tournament Championship Round (mirror) (from RayAlome) – The first ever USA Rock Paper Scissors tournament where the winner walks away with $50,000 was held in Las Vegas in 2006. The contestants in this final round is “Fast-Twitch” Twitchel vs “Drill” McGill. What’s hilarious is the announcer before the match when hey does the hand motion while saying, “… as one player with do this for $50,000 and a place in history.” When I saw that hand motion, I immediately thought of something else that looked like that… The commentary during the match was hilarious too: American Hero, RPS Immortality, formidable opponent.. hahaha!

Non-scents from Nokia (from /.) – Students from London’s CSM College of Art and Design have been working on new designs for futuristic looking cell phones. Check out the pictures at BBC.

Drug stashes found at Home Depots – Police are investigating Massachusetts outlets of Home Depot Inc. after discovering caches of cocaine and marijuana stuffed into merchandise at three local branches of the retail chain. Low on cocaine? Visit your local Home Depot and purchase a bathroom cabinet.

Liquid Armor (from /.) – Flexible full-body protection that could save our troops’ lives and limbs is at the top of the list for many researchers and technology companies. One such product could soon make its way to Iraq. As this ScienCentral News video explains, the secret ingredient is a liquid that could turn lightweight material into full-body armor.Do check out the video.

Hybrid DVD/HD DVD discs arrive – Now, Warner Home Video is hoping to change this equation somewhat by releasing “hybrid” titles—discs that are regular DVD movies on one side and HD DVD on the other. Interesting…

DNA test to clear up Confucius confusion – Now his countrymen can establish a genetic link in a test that will cost more than 1,000 yuan ($125), according to the Shanghai Morning Post. “We would like to help these unconfirmed claimants to test their DNA and to establish a Confucius-DNA database,” it quoted Deng Yajun, a DNA expert from Beijing Institute of Genomics at the Chinese Academy of Science, as saying. How the scientists had obtained a sample of Confucius’s DNA was not explained. Smells like a scam…

The Corruptibles! (from /.) – EFF distributes an animation showing you how evil thes media companies can become.

OpenSky (from /.) – a Nausicaa project where the try to make the flying device that was used in Ghibli’s animation. Do check out the videos they made.

if the earth were a sandwich (from /.) – it’s a new craze! It seems the first people to complete the sandwich were these guys: 0009 Earth Sandwich.

D1大整古-滑雪場按摩椅 (from Ohfuee) – *not work safe* the title translates to “D1 Big Prank – Snow Sliding Massage Chair”. The only reason it’s not work safe is because when the victims flip over, their towel comes off. The hilarious one comes later when the massage chair actually laucnhes.

UBC Engineers Create Vehicle that Travels from Vancouver to Halifax on a Gallon of Gas (from /.) – The UBC design, which required the driver to lie down while navigating it, achieved 3,145 miles per US gallon (0.074 litres/100 km) — equivalent of Vancouver to Halifax on a gallon (3.79 litres) of gas — costing less than $5 at the pump.

Fully Internal Watercooled Xbox 360 (from /.) – It’s not the first time we see a watercooled Xbox 360: x-scene forum moderator Xboxexpert made one and we’ve also seen one from hardocp.com. But unlike to the 2 previous one, this one is fully internal … it’s all inside the Xbox 360 case.

HAJIKERO! iincho – Apparently they made another video with the same CG as Funky Cat Maybe.

Exam cheats score high marks for ingenuity – A student in Wuhan, capital of China’s central province of Hubei, used earphones so small that they slipped into his aural canal and perforated his eardrum, the China Daily newspaper said. Another student’s earphones required an operation for their removal, the paper said, while an electronic device connected to headphones and strapped to a third student’s body exploded, leaving a bleeding hole in his abdomen. Sigh… they need to make more universities…

Animal rights protest shuts restaurant – Banner-wielding animal rights protesters swarmed into a restaurant serving cat meat in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and forced it to shut, Xinhua news agency said Sunday. The 40 or so, mainly female demonstrators — holding banners reading “cats and dogs are friends of human beings” — entered the Fangji Cat Meatball restaurant and demanded the owner free any live cats on the premises, Xinhua said. Any animal can become a friend of human beings. I’ve never heard of cats being eating in China, but dogs are common delicacies.

Pregnant pause as Moms wait for baby bonus – Australian hospitals are bracing for a baby boom in July as expectant mothers try to delay imminent births to take advantage of a new welfare payment, researchers said Monday. From July 1, a baby bonus paid to the parents for every newborn child will increase by A$1,000 ($740) to A$4,000. Government at this point should just move the bonus starting date earlier…

Soccer-mad monks too tired to take alms – The Nation quoted a woman in the northern city of Chiang Mai who said her birthday celebrations were ruined because monks at a city temple were not awake to receive her morning offering, a mandatory religious ritual in the predominately Buddhist country. The woman, who declined to be identified, said she was told by a senior monk that most of his young colleagues were still asleep because they had stayed up to watch the games which can go on well past midnight.

Tailing a monkey man in search of healing powers – Thousands of people are flocking to an impoverished Indian village in eastern West Bengal state to worship a man they believe possesses divine powers because he climbs up trees in seconds, gobbles up bananas and has a “tail.” … Tucked away in a hamlet in Banarhat, over 400 miles north of Kolkata, the state capital, devotees wait for hours to see or touch Oraon’s 13-inch tail, believing that it has healing powers. Doctors said the “tail” — made up of some flesh but mostly of dark hair — was simply a rare physical attribute. Is this the reincarnation of 孫悟空?

Just heard from SD: HSBC Direct just bumped the interest rate on their Online Savings Account to 4.8% APY (from 4.65% APY)

Pretty neat!

I’ve been with them for about 4 months now and have been pretty pleased with their service. Though I did find out there’s a max number of bank to bank transactions per month (limited to 6 per month), but that’s usually true for any online savings account (ING, Emigrant, Citi, etc), though I don’t know if all of them have the same limit, but there’s definitely a cap.

So on Friday, I had a 11am meeting. I set my alarm clock to go off at 9:23am (the reason of :23 is just because when I’m changing the hours, sometimes I hit the minute button on accident, and so far it’s been 3 mistakes since my last reset to 12:00). When the alarm went of, I hit the snooze 3x:

Once at 9:23am
Once at 9:32am
Once at 9:41am

At this point, I decide that I want an extra hour of sleep, and change my alarm clock to go off at 10:23am. However, the alarm clock doesn’t go off till 10:50am. After showering and getting dressed, I ended up 20+ minutes late to work, all the time I’m wondering why the alarm didn’t go off at 10:23am. Could I have been so asleeped, I hit the snooze button 3x without realizing it (I’ve done that before).

However, the more I think about it, the more I understand what really happened (and could explained why I was late to one of my finals back in college).

There needs to be a way for the clock to remember when to set off the alarm in the case of multiple snoozes. I’m guessing it remembers the delta between the alarm clock time and the next alarm. So when I hit snooze at 9:41am, the next alarm would be at 9:50am, giving it a delta of 27 minutes. However, when I change the alarm clock time, the alarm was not turned off, meaning the snooze wasn’t reset. So when 10:23am came around, it remembered the snooze delta and didn’t go off till 10:50am.

I haven’t tried this again to prove this, and I don’t know if that’s how it works with every alarm clock, but if you have time, I’d like to hear how your alarm clock works in this situation.

How Heavy is This Glass of Water? (from Zena):

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised A glass of water and asked, “how heavy is this glass of water?”
Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.

The lecturer replied,
“The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it.
If I hold it for a minute, that’s not a problem.
If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my right arm.
If I hold it for a day, You’ll have to call an ambulance.
In each case, it’s the same weight, But the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”

He continued, “And that’s the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, Sooner or later, As the burden becomes increasingly heavy, We won’t be able to carry on.”

“As with the glass of water, You have to put it down for a while and rest before holding It again. When we’re refreshed, we can carry on with the burden.”
“So, before you return home tonight, Put the burden of work down. Don’t carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you’re carrying now, Let them down for a moment if you can.”
“Relax; pick them up later after you’ve rested. Life is short. Enjoy it! And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:”

• Accept that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue.
• Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
• Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
• Drive carefully. It’s not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.
• If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
• If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
• It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
• Never buy a car you can’t push.
• Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on.
• Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
• Since it’s the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.
• The second mouse gets the cheese.
• When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
• Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
• You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.
• Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once

A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

Have an awesome day and know that someone has thought about you today. I did.