Timeshare Presentation

Exactly a year ago, DH and I went on a "free" trip to Honolulu, HI which was a "gift" from a timeshare presentation. Click here for the related blog posting. Last week, we got a letter inviting us to a presentation... from the same timeshare with the same gift!!! Of course we jumped on it and made an appointment.

This timeshare company is called RCI. Their deals are the best we've seen so far. We were actually tempted to buy last time, but they didn't have resorts at places we care for (San Jose and Hong Kong) and plus, money is always better in my pocket than in theirs. So we went early this afternoon, to see if anything changed. With the real estate market crash, I was curious about how it would affect prices.

We let the presenter know that we attended the presentation before. He asked why we didn't buy last time and I gave him two good reasons: it wasn't within our budget and they didn't have resorts in the cities we cared for. This time, they now have *one* location in Hong Kong. The company keeps on growing and acquiring new locations. Then, he asked how much it was 2 years ago, we answered it was in the $8000 figure and we were here to see if price would have dropped. He answered that big hotels don't care about real estates crisis, they will always keep their prices high. (Despite I don't agree on that one, since airfare and hotel prices have dropped significantly, I didn't want to waste too much of his or our time.) So, this presenter was convinced we wouldn't buy and said that if we didn't buy last time, we wouldn't buy this time because prices has gone up. Their cheapest package is now around $9300 for 21,000 points with $254 in annual maintance fees and $189 of transaction fees for each week you exchange (this fee would be $160 if done online). After saying many things to convince us it is a good deal, we answered that times are hard and it is not within our budget, we like our money close to us in this kind of market. Then he says that "software engineers have the easiest job in the Bay Area and [you] can always find another job [in case of a lay off]". We stayed quiet. Then he pulled out his daughter's picture and tell us why we would want to waste his time because this is how he makes money to raise her. We stayed quiet. If you know me, you probably know I have lots of opinions. I think is it just fair for us to shop around and it is unwise to make impulsive purchases, but we stayed quiet. I tried to keep an open mind and see if they dropped their prices, I wouldn't say we intentionally go there for the free trip, because we didn't look for it, they invited us! The presenter already labelled us. He was frustrated and said he'll make sure we'll be on the do not call list. We walked out with two coupons: one for a free trip to Honolulu, HI (2 nights plus air) and another one is a 2-night stay at one of the 5-6 location choices (we'll probably pick Lake Tahoe or Reno).

Home Sweet Home

Woo hoo! I'm going to be back home for the holidays! Catch me if you can!

McDonald's Personel

Seating in a corner of a McDonald's restaurant, I'm here sipping my iced sweet tea while using their wi-fi and waiting for my next class. I've been customer of McDonald's since I was a kid. The experience is always quick and the service is without hesitation. Back home, McDonald's staffing usually consists of students and young people. They are sharp, full of energy and quick. The experience is totally different here. The staff are rather mature... at least they seem older than me. Most or all of them are dark skinned. This cashier even had problems explaining what's in a Happy Meal. Her English seemed limited. Yes, you have guessed right. Back home, this kind of jobs are for students with lots of energy, here, it seems to be dominated by Latino workers. Just an observation. However, on the other hand, In-N-Out Burger seems to have a youthful personel.

Sarah Palin

me: Wow... Palin was Miss Wasilla!!!... and she finished third (second runner-up) in the Miss Alaska Pageant!
DH: Now try to picture Miss Teen South Carolina running for VP!

Links: Sarah Palin playing flute

Facebook and My Ottawa Friends

Dear Ottawa friends,

About two weeks ago, I was playing with Facebook features and removed my "relationship status" so that it doesn't show. Please let me clarify that DH and I are still happily married. I sincerely thank you for your caring. Thank you to those who checked up on me to see how I'm doing. It was not my intention to cause any worries. From what I heard, I caused "some sad gossip" in Ottawa. Little did I know that the one who cares most about finding out if I divorced is actually someone who wouldn't contact me directly, even better, he does not even own a Facebook account!!!

Yours truthfully,
little camy

Labour Day Weekend in San Diego, CA

DH and I got a ride from a friend and went down to San Diego, CA. There was traffic on the way down and it took us 9 hours drive to get there after work on Friday!

It was 2:00am when we arrived and we crashed at our friend's brother's place. The next day, we spent a day at Las Americas outlet in San Ysidro, CA, near the Mexico border. Then our friend dropped us off in downtown San Diego to check in at Doubletree Hotel, which we previously bid on priceline.com. Let me tell you how unsatisfied we were with the customer service when we called Priceline. We encountered some problems and called them, this people avoid answering by hanging up!! Yup, it's ridiculous! The first time it happened, we thought maybe we lost connection, but after it happened thrice, we looked up on reviews of Priceline and the general public do agree that their customer service is horrible! Despite the bad experience with Priceline, we enjoyed our stay at Doubletree. It was a nice hotel and we got a room with a nice view on the 21st floor of a 22-storey hotel. We were greeted with their signature warm cookies.

On Sunday, we didn't have a car, so we spent the day checking out downtown San Diego. We walked so much that my pedometer registered over 22 000 steps! We started off from our hotel and went to Balboa Park. We visited the Natural History Museum. Then we walked back towards downtown and stopped by a 7 Eleven for some lunch/snack. We continued our walk all the way to the habour to enjoy the water front. Finally we walked to Horton Plaza where a friend picked us up to go to the beach and then dinner. Look at the map!


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Hidden heart harm of fatty foods

This is an interesting article from BBC. Here's a quote I took out of the article (link to article further below):

"Instead of a healthy pink muscle, his heart looks like a pulsating
lump of lard after a lifetime of eating too much saturated fat.

The layer of fat encasing Mr Haj's heart was so thick the surgeons
doing his triple bypass could not see his coronary arteries."

The video on the page shows surgery... you may or may not want to view that:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7605999.stm

Wonton Noodle Soup

Today, I made Hong Kong style shrimp wonton noodle soup for the first time. Surprisingly, it came out very good at the first trial! Woohoo! One item down on my list of cooking challenges, one more item on the list of items I will not order at restaurants. DH says is delicious :D.

It is really worth making my own wonton noodle soup? At least it has no MSG! The wonton wrap was the only thing I didn't make from scratch. Now let's see how much it costs me:

For wonton:
1 pack of wonton skin (1lbs, ~86 pieces): $1.59
1 lbs of ground pork: $1.79
2 lbs of shrimps: $6.00 (yeah, I got a deal on these)
seasoning: negligible
-> This makes about 14 portions of 6 wontons, therefore $0.67/portion.

For noodles and soup:
1 lbs of pork bones: $1.00
1 lbs of fresh egg noodles: $2.39
1 lbs of vegetables: $1.00
seasoning: negligible
-> This makes about 4 portions, therefore $1.10/portion.

Wow, that's cheap! I didn't realize until now. So, if we round up a bit for the cost of seasoning, a bowl of wonton noodle soup would cost around $2.00. Unfortunately, I don't know how much electricity I used, I guess that's the price I have to pay for some MSG-free and safe homemade food!

Sad News

Recently, I read in the news that a Montreal woman was shot to death in Afghanistan. It is a sad news, but even sadder when I found out that she is the wife of Professor Kirk, who taught me EMF.

http://www.mcgill.ca/channels/announcements/item/?item_id=101156

Revolutionary Idea!

Did you ever wonder why women change their name to their husband's after marrying them? It tradition is still practiced in many culture. It is a very confusing, especially nowadays that women have their own career and that divorce is a common practice. I met a woman who was widowed thrice and is currently married to a fourth husband, therefore she had have 5 names in the course of her life... now how confusing is that!

In Quebec, under the civil law, a woman cannot legally change her name to her husband's:

"Both spouses keep their birth names after marriage and continue to exercise their civil rights under that name, i.e. they must use their birth name in contracts, on credit cards, on their driver's licence, etc. However, women are free however to assume their husband's name socially. Women married before April 2, 1981 who already use their husband's last name to exercise their civil rights may continue to do so."

I don't believe that women should be her man's belonging. My revolutionary idea is if the husband insists his wife in taking his name, then the wife should offer a name swap! He takes her name, she takes his name!

Tips for maintaining your laptop battery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion

Since I'm getting a new laptop with a Li-ion battery, I read up on it and found interesting tips I want to share with you.

Waiting for my next laptop

After my blue-screen experience with the previous Dell Inspiron 1420, I decided to try HP. Don't get me wrong, I received good service from Dell's tech-support. For some "unknown" reason, the three I spoke to coincidentally had Indian-sounding names and spoke with an Indian-like accent. Though satisfied with the level of service, I didn't fall in love with my Dell Inspiron 1420, therefore I decided to try HP, a brand I never had experience with. My friends recommended me a Mac. I would love getting a Mac, but I never saw it drop enough to fit my budget.

There's a similar/same deal going on with HP laptops as for the Dell laptops: get 25% off 14.1" laptops over $999. I upgraded mine to reach $1050 with a Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHz) and 250GB of HD. There was a free upgrade to 2GB of RAM and it also comes with a free HP Deskjet D1560 Printer (value of $70), which I don't care for.

Now, I'm patiently waiting for my next toy. :D

Home Sweet Home

When I was growing up, I always wondered why people get excited when they meet someone from their home country. Especially in a Chinese community, they get very friendly when they meet people from their village and speaking their dialects.

My parents have been visiting for the past few weeks. Today, I went to SFO airport to send them off. While waiting for them to cross security, I overheard someone speaking Québécois. I turned my head to look and had a smile. This feeling of belonging to a limited group of people speaking a language with a specific accent is quite strange. You can identify where they come from almost without a mistake, they probably grew up on the same land as you did. I bet it would be even more surprising for them to hear me speak, because I just don't look like someone who speaks Québécois!

Still hanging around... without computer!

It's not really easy to keep in touch without a computer. The laptop I've been using finally died in the 2nd half of April. It just refused to power on! It was a good old Toshiba (897 MHz with 256 MB of RAM) that a good friend lent me. It's time for an upgrade!

It took me a good couple of weeks before I found a deal that attracted me. I got myself a Dell Inspiron 1420: 14.1", Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHz), 3 GB of RAM, 120 GB of HD with built-in Bluetooth and webcam priced at regular price for $1019. After 25% off and 8.25% tax it totaled $833.30. I was quite satisfied with the deal!

Unfortunately, it was just not meant to be. On the day after I received it, I was playing with its webcam software and I encountered the Windows Vista blue screen (BSOD - Blue Screen Of Death)! I had a chance to work with Dell's tech support. I followed tech support's instructions and did a system restore. After restarting Windows Vista, I got a 2nd blue screen when starting Internet Explorer! At that point, my case was escalated and I was given a phone number and a contact name. The service I experienced was quite good. It took me about 2 weeks of phone exchanges with Dell's tech support but the cause of the blue screens was not determined. I finally decided to return the laptop for a full refund (due to defectiveness). In the meantime, I got a third blue screen.

Once again, I'm computer-less... it feels weird... Let me know if you find any good deals for my budget of less than $900 total (out of pocket)!

Free Drinks!

Jamba Juice is giving away free breakfast tomorrow until 10am to promote their new breakfast products!

http://www.jambajuice.com/

And coincidentally, Starbucks is having some kind of promotion tomorrow as well... but they are not telling what it is "because it will spoil the surprise"!

http://starbucks.com/

Enjoy!

Home, Sweet Home!

It is booked! I'll be back to Montreal on June 26th until July 15th. Please mark down your calendars if you care about meeting me!

It will be the 3rd time I go back home after I moved to California and also the 3rd time I use my points for a flight home. Let's see if I can keep the trend. My target is to not have to pay for airfare to visit home. This time, I redeemed with United Airlines' Mileage Plus program. DH redeemed using Delta Airlines' points. He wants to get rid of them. We would be flying separately, which really bothers me. After 6 years of long distance relationship, I have grown enough hatred towards traveling alone and crossing borders alone. However, I guess I will do it to save a few hundreds of bucks. Sister is going back too. She decided a few weeks after us and was able to use her points as well, but she will arrive half a day after me. It's funny: the 3 of us will arrive at 3 different times with half a day intervals between arrivals.

Flight Booking Tip

This tip was known to me since 2002. It is probably the most useful tip that my travel agent gave me. It came in very handy today. I thought of sharing it with you on my blog.

When an airline change your flight (ie. when they bump you to a different flight) or there is a schedule change (ie. change in time of the flight), you are eligible to ask to be rescheduled. I've done with successfully with Northwest Airlines and also confirmed it with United Airlines. UA told me that if the flight schedule change is greater than 90 mins, then we can request to change flight within the same class.

Couple weeks ago, we booked tickets for my parents to come visit next month. We purposely booked direct flight from Montreal to San Francisco. There is only one per day. We just found out today that they rescheduled them to transfer in Denver one the way going and Chicago on the way back. This would cause major confusions to my parents and a longer travel time. We checked the timetable, Air Canada canceled direct flights on both days. We called them and were able to reschedule them on different days with direct flights.

Ever since I knew about this trick, I like to book early for big holidays (3-5 months in advance) as soon as I find a decent deal, usually for July (hight season) or Christmas. Then as the days come closer (about 3 weeks - 1 month), airlines would readjust their schedule according to demand. I would monitor and if they change my itinerary, then I request to change to a more ideal time or even airport! For instance, for Christmas 2002, I booked to depart on the Sunday before Christmas because Saturday was a blackout date, after they changed my itinerary, I was able to negotiate to depart the day before!

South Beach Diet

It's that time of the year, spring is around he corner and I'm getting ready for summer by starting my annual South Beach Diet. I really love that diet, it works very well for me so I do it every year :D.

Today is day 2. I have another 12 days of no carbs to endure before I can slowly re-introduce good carbs. It's quite painful, but hey... it's guaranteed to work! My record is losing 7lbs in 9 days and I was able to lose 10lbs for my wedding.

Going Vegetarian - Conclusion

I heard that some of you wanted to know the result of my vegetarian diet. Well, it wasn't as "cleansing" experience as I thought. The first 3 days was wonderful, we ate at home and had homemade cooking. After that, it went all wrong. We over ate! We went to try vegetarian Indian food. We had dosa and other dishes for the first time. It was good, but it was also a lot of potatoes and starch (and saturated fat from the coconut!)! We were quite stuffed. The following days, we had a lot of curries and also went to Sweet Tomatoes (a salad and soup buffet). Needless to say, we over ate for the remainder 7 days of our 11 days of diet! I have to say, that's not exactly what I expected from the diet!

For conclusion, I believe it is fairly easy to be non-strict vegetarian here in Silicon Valley. Supermarkets have great selections and many restaurants offer vegetarian alternatives. However, it becomes very tricky when you go out with non-vegetarian friends. Especially if they want to go for pho (vietnamese food) or Chinese food. It is definitely challenging when you want to have cheap fast food! One time, we had to fill on potato wedges at Safeway for quick lunch! So, finally, I don't see a need of going vegetarian again in the near future. As far as I am concerned, it's only healthier if you eat at home or at fancier restaurant.

Going Vegetarian

On Monday, I started a vegetarian diet. DH and I are going vegetarian for 10 days just for an experiment. It has nothing to do with religions and believes. I still believe we are not at the bottom of the food chain, so it is merely for fun! I wanted to cut all animal products, but I think I should start slowly, so I'm allowing myself to milk products and eggs, so that I can eat cakes and cookies :D.

The purpose of this experiment is to verify how difficult it is to be vegetarian in our society and if the vegetarian diet gives noticeable physical difference. Today is Day 4, the first 3 days weren't bad. I find myself eating a lot of veggie soup with noodles or pasta. Our friend T. is participating in our experiment and he says he's been eating more carbs than ever: he stuffs himself with lots of bread and rice! I think the most challenging is for T. and DH to say no to free meat at work!

After 3.5 days of vegetarianism, I do feel a physical difference. I don't feel as stuffed, almost wanting to eat something. I definitely have more water intake from all those veggies and fruits. On the other hand, T. feels more stuffed than before from eating all those refined carbs! I wonder if I would lose weight or body fat percentage... Oh... I must mention that on Monday, we also started the National Body Challenge, therefore, we started exercising on Monday, maybe that would affect our weight and percentage body fat too. Anyway, I don't say no to losing some fat and weight... :D