Ray's Cafe

How much is in your wallet

2015-11-24T16:20:00.002-08:00

So my kids' school is going to be rebuilt. All families in the school are asked to pledge. Given that I have 3 kids and therefore 1200 Million HKD in debts (don't ask me why), I turned to my friends for help!

Today, I received a shiny bill from a dear colleague of mine. And he also graciously agrees that this is just his first installment of his 3 year contribution! And he asked me to remind him on this very same day next year for the 2nd payment. I decided to blog about this so I won't forget. LOL.

Although my blog looks stale, I know I have some loyal readers, if you are one of them, please help your poor friend!

Cheers!

Daddy time

2015-05-30T09:55:00.003-07:00

Can you believe that? Just a couple weeks after my solo trip to Toronto, I have got another chance to have some time all to myself. Too good to be true. Yea, it's fake. I am just dreaming.

Ray's Cafe

2015-05-08T19:03:00.003-07:00

Keep dreaming - I will own one!

Hmm

2014-09-27T11:07:00.003-07:00

I definitely didn't do a good job in keeping this blog going. I am sort of surprised that they didn't just turf this blog. I guess storage is cheap these days.

The original purpose of this blog was to rant about stuffs that happened around me in a cafe that I will eventually own. The plan was to post all my postings to the wall of this cafe so I don't have to worry about what color theme I should pick, or design I should go with if I can own this dream cafe one day. But I guess slowly but surely things were not going to the way that I had planned.

But just to give a quick summary of this gap, I was pretty shitty at times, but I think I am a pretty lucky person. I always managed to get over shit. So now when I see bigger shit, I am pretty confident that I will ride over that shit. I figure that life is like a well designed game, always fill with surprises and challenges. I just need to find that peaceful la la land, and try to stay on that for a bit longer.

Even though I was never a good writer, I never had my stuff published in a paid publication, never got an A in any of my writing classes, I always managed to convince myself that I like to write. I guess loving to write does not mean one can write well. I digress...

The reason why I am resurrecting this blog is because I feel like I am full of shit again. Though, this time I think I would do something different. Instead of ranting about my insanely awesome life, I will be more 'schizophrenia'. So my next identity is going to be a 20 something white male.

Now am I getting your attention?

First Love

2013-04-03T16:50:00.000-07:00

something different

2013-01-11T21:04:00.000-08:00

Something different - what a cute band! =)

楼道王菲（刘美麟）

2013-01-07T23:51:00.001-08:00

周杰伦-菊花台

2011-10-30T21:26:00.000-07:00

I Love You

2011-10-21T15:57:00.001-07:00

Make you feel my love

2011-10-20T00:28:00.000-07:00

Fix you

2011-10-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

Social network I

2011-10-17T16:46:00.000-07:00

Think twice before you open a social network account. Because once you do that, you can never revert back to where you were before. This is not a threat that I just made up for this blog entry. I can speak from my experience that this is indeed the case.

About 10 years ago, when the company that I previously worked for was still cool and hip, team building was one of the big things for the company because they believe it can boost morale. One of the team building activities was to write a bio of ourselves and share across departments. All bios were supposed to be available in our intranet, but years later, I was able to find all the bios in the internet!

Most people would agree that internet is perhaps one of the greatest inventions in man kind. However, it is also a very dangerous invention if you don't know what you are stepping into. I am going to use a very classic example that you may have read about. You are a very young successful executive in a public company. You are very active in social network space. You have high school, college buddies and along with work colleagues in your social network site. And you just attended a stag party for your best bud, and you had a great time. The next morning you came to the office, you realized lots of people were looking at you, and they all seemed to be talking about you. Then hours later, when you get the chance to log on to the social network, then you see that you were tagged! And you were spanking, being spanked...

I guess I don't need to continue with my examples.

How to record skype calls

2011-10-16T23:45:00.000-07:00

Has anybody out there used this? Without trying it out myself, I wonder where the recording gets saved to. And at the end of the video, it did seem to suggest that the recording was saved in the local machine.

Oxymoron

2011-10-15T15:25:00.001-07:00

Not sure why, I feel that there are lots of small circles in church. Lots of people appear to be friendly but you just don't get the chance to get to know them or let them know you.

Parenting

2011-10-15T00:28:00.000-07:00

I am not a good parent. Before becoming a parent, I have self taught myself lots of theories from observing other parents. And I was so confident that I would naturally master this job when the time comes. So I never had the urge to find any resources to learn more.

After becoming a parent, I slowly come to a realization that a lot of my theories/methods that I was once confident don't really work. For example, if a baby is not having a temperature and that he is well fed and dry, I used to think that he should be able to fall into sleep by himself during his nap/bed time. And I believe all babies are natural manipulator. If they sense any weakness in their parents, they will just take advantage of them. But apparently, I was wrong. Well, in the case of my kids. My younger one is a good example. When she cries during her bed time without any 'obvious reasons', my wife and I used to insist not to pick her up. And she would just keep crying non-stop
until one of us picks her up(the longest stretch can be an hour!). Then we started to wonder what would happen if we picked her up right when she started crying. We tried, and we were pleasantly surprised. Turned out, all she wanted was a little comfort and attention. We can practically put her right back on bed after holding her for a short 10 seconds.

Before becoming a parent, I used to fantasize that I should be able to raise geniuses. I have everything sorted out. From phonic games to math games, I have them all figured out. I was hoping that my kids can read and write in the age of 2! But I slowly learned that it's not as simple as I thought it would be. I really wanted to be strict, and discipline hard to 'stimulate' my kids to be at the genius level; but all the stuff that I learned from the 'west' tell me otherwise. So I kind of losing faith in raising geniuses.

But now that I have learned about the 'motivational' Tiger Mom story, my hopes are up again. Now let's see what I can do to my 16 months old. :)

Give me a skirt - I can be a 'c lai'

2011-10-14T23:55:00.000-07:00

Before this stay-cation, I never cooked a full meal. But since day one of this stay-cation, I was expected to be able to delivered. Thanks for all the 'trust'! I made all these dishes. And one of the kids seems to be quite fond of my cooking; the other one is just too young to try. :)

柴米油鹽醬醋茶

2011-07-29T23:47:00.000-07:00

Came across this song today; and got quite touched by it.

Re: dilemma

2011-01-09T22:49:00.000-08:00

Family budget

2010-09-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

I wonder if a regular household would have a family budget.

I surveyed a few friends for this silly question. "If your gf/wife requests to get a $800 purse, would you do it?"

The results I gathered were quite surprising.

Somebody mentioned that I should add more to it.

Here is a little story that I overheard.

Brad and Angelina were shopping at a Superstore. They had a shopping list.

To Brad, grocery shopping is boring but otherwise an easy task. He usually planned ahead or delegate the planning to Angelina. He doesn't quite like surprises especially for unplanned purchases.

On the other hand, Angelina said she's the same, and that she's not an impulsive buyer.

So as they were walking down on the kitchenware aisle, she saw a baking ware, weird looking, with 3 slots; she grabbed it and looked at it for about 3 seconds, and then she was going to put it down to the shopping cart.

At that 3 seconds time, Brad seemed like he was pulled into a light tunnel where he can see lots of discrete images on the light - he saw at least 2 or 3 different type of baking ware at home; and then he saw another 2 or 3 different types of blender, mixer, food processor, all crammed in the kitchen; and then he also heard the complaints about kitchen being too small...

'No' - Brad spoke bluntly. 'What?' - Angelina responded.

'We have a few baking wares already'.
'But this one has 3 slots.' Angelina said that with enthusiasm.
'If you want 3 slots, I can DIY a divider', Brad said that with his straight face.

Good thing about Angelina is that she knows when Brad has an off day.

But that's not the end of the story - of course.

So I wonder - should I allocate something towards 'not-so-impulsive' purchases? Make sense, I guess. But that also means there will be cuts from somewhere else.

Sigh... middle class.

Anniversary

2010-09-02T18:36:00.000-07:00

Almost 5 years! 3 more days - what to do what to do...

Being thankful

2010-08-31T18:33:00.000-07:00

I have a lot to be thankful for...

Lessons learned and pending questions

2010-08-31T18:26:00.001-07:00

Lessons I learned -

1) Before handing in your driver license, try to explain. Don't wait. And of course, do not piss the officer at the same time.
2) If you are ticketed, save your effort. He/she will not undo the ticket right then.
3) Don't be afraid of trouble. Dispute! iff you think you are right.
4) Prepare for the court hearing. (I saw many ppl going there empty handed, I guess they were there to hope the officer would not show up).
5) Dress appropriately to the court hearing. Not that it really matters I guess but I saw some dudes wearing casual clothing and jeans. Not sure if it's coincidence, but none of them 'won' their disputes from my observation.
6) Prepare to talk to the officer before your court hearing - apparently, this is one of the very standard procedures.

Pending questions -
1) Any techniques I should learn from talking to a cop? Burnt out tail light lead to a ticket is the first case I heard of!

I won I won

2010-08-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

On July 9, 2009, around 8pm, a cop signaled and pulled me over after following me for a red light and then a good block of distant. He approached to my car, and asked if I knew my tail light was out, after I answered 'no', he then asked me to show him my driver license. I thought he would go through my record, and let me know what he'll do. So I handed him my driver license and was reasonably confident that this would not lead to any ticket. He went back to his car, and 15 minutes later, he walked over to me and handed me a ticket. I was in shocked, and I figured I should save my breath for not even talking to him.

jerk! pppfffffffft.

I told myself, I would dispute this ticket.

A year went by, finally got the letter for the court hearing.

I prepared all my evidence, including the maintenance receipt I had 3 weeks before I got caught, and the receipt that I bought for the lights after I got caught, and along with my pile of receipts from day 1 of my car's purchase to date!

Fail to maintain my butt! jerk.

Though I prepared for the worst. The fact the tail light was burned out seemed in-excusable; and I didn't want to lie to say that I checked my car in the morning.

But come on, isn't the crime rate in Vancouver climbing? why bullying a good citizen instead of catching real crimes?

When I arrived at the traffic court, I knew the best chance for me to win the case was the cop not to show up.

Moments after I arrived, I saw that dude. I felt sick to my stomach, jackass! I said to myself.

Then this huge jack came to me, and said 'Mr. Chao', sht, this jack actually recognized my ugly face too.

Good thing I am fat now, my fat on my face covered all my angerish red, and I managed to smile at him, and said, 'Yes'.

Strangely, he was being a complete gentlemen and started to explain what I should be expecting from the court after I told him that this would have been my first time in court.

He asked me what I would say in the court. I didn't really want to talk to him cuz he wasn't exactly the type that I wanted. ;) and I didn't think it was appropriate to tell him my plan. But then I thought, wtf, if I was right, I was right, I will just take this as an opportunity to practice my talk to the judge. So I told him that I brought all my records to show that I didn't fail to maintain my car.

At the end, he said he trusted me and he checked my driving records, and they seemed all clean to him; so he's willing to set me free.

We still had to go to the court, and during the trial, he said 'no evidence', then the judge went 'case dismissed'.

So there, I saved $109.

I hope I won't see him again though.

十年又一

2010-07-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

時光飛逝﹐ 歲月如梭。眨眼之間﹐ 十一年悄然而逝﹐ 若不是腰間的脂肪逐漸成為綁鞋帶的障礙物﹐ 還真不怎麼覺得時光就在渾渾遏遏中流去了。當赫然看到公司的壁報版上發現自己的名字﹐ 還有那十一的字樣﹐ 忽然覺得。。。有點兒不是滋味。

Flashback - a MVP and a Loser

2010-07-13T23:50:00.000-07:00

Brad is a heavy sleeper; usually he wouldn't wake up even if one plays music right beside his bed. But this night, it's a little strange, he got woken up by some unusual noise from his wife. Oh no, not the snore, his beautiful wife Angelina does not snore.

Angelina is one day away from her baby's expected due day; but even right before her bed time, she told Brad that she's a little unease about the fact that there was no sign of labour. So Brad was rather annoyed that he got woken up by the strange noise, but right after he opened his eyes, he knew, the time must have come.

Brad is a natural leader; Apparently! The first thing he did was to quickly calm himself down, lots of stuff came to his mind and he managed to spin everything in just a few seconds.

He then asked Angelina, 'how much pain are you in?'
Angelina: 'a lot'
Brad: 'call the doc, and ask if we should just go in'
Angelina: 'ok'
Brad continued... 'I need to commit my work stuff before going to the hospital', and that was about 4am. 'Let me know what the doc say'. Not knowing if Angelina might have rolled her eyes, Brad rushed into his home office, turned on his computer.

Moments later, Angelina came in and said the doc had asked us to come in.

Again, Brad's leadership shined through.

'It's going to be a long day, you should go brush up and make sure you eat something. I really need to commit my works before taking off. I am the only one who's on this killer issue, and I got them ready and well tested yesterday, and I was planning to commit them today since there was no sign of the labour.'

Angelina must have rolled her eyes again.

Half an hour later, Brad finally got his stuff checked in, created a review, and sent an email to his manager about his latest checked in and the labour situation.

Angelina came in again and said, 'breakfast is ready, it's going to be a long day, make sure you eat them'.

Brad felt something wet and funny in his eyes.

...

A gorgeous baby was born at 10:36am; and then about an hour later, Brad sent an email to his manager, and told him about the issue should be in a good shape, and that someone intelligent can help to do the clean up if need be.

I say, that's crazy. There are a MVP and a loser in the story.