Chris Cheng?

I was browsing through the books I keep at my parents when I found this one, bought on April 4, 1988 by Christopher Cheng. I thought I have used 'sean' forever, but obviosly not before 1988. So can I say 'sean' is no more than 19 years old? OMG, I am a teenager. That feels good.

A Friend from the Past

How many email accounts do you have? 1? 2? I have more than that. Pick a number, maybe 10? Of course I have accounts from all major free email providers. Who doesn't? But sometimes when I registered for some online services, that account also comes with a free email account. I may have 3 or 4 such email accounts, but don't use them at all.

I have an old old old hotmail account, maybe have had it for like 10 years (I can easily tell from the password.., you know, good old days), or maybe more. As this email account was heavily spammed at one point, I stopped using it for a period of time. It was later when I came back to Taiwan to work in 2003, and realized that all the friends around me were using MSN! I am never a fan for Microsoft, but still, I tried to use it again, but only for MSN purpose. I still log in this account once in a while, just to keep it active, as per Microsoft's requirements.

So a while ago, I logged in, clicked on inbox, mindlessly browsed through all the spams (Microsoft has made great improvement in blocking spams, but still is no comparsion with others). That's when one email caught my attention.

Subject title: hi... from Greg.

My first assumption is, this is a spam. I've seen so many of those. Legimate guess, right? But I still clicked on it, just out of curiosity (BAD practice). To my surprise, it is a regular email, not someone who is trying to sell v1agra, or p0rn, or something like that.

Then few emails flew back and forth. I tried to re-organize it into dialogues for easy reading..

G: Hi Sean, I just came across your email account. We met a long time ago, and I was wondering if you are still using it. ciao.

S (smiling politely): Hi Greg, nice to get your email. As this email account is heavily spammed, I dont normallly check it anymore. Please send future correspondence to xxx@yyy.com.

G: Hi Sean, good morning. yeah, we met a few years ago. I think after we met, you were moving to California.. blah blah blah

OS: WHAT? I moved to California in 1999. How can this person know about the move, plus some further details but I cannot remember him at all? This can't be right. There has to be a plot or something. Maybe some friend is just playing a practical joke.

S (still smiling, anxiously): Hi Greg, I am afraid I may not the one you knew back in 1998 or 1999 timeframe. Attached is my recent photo. Please take a look to confirm.

G: Yes! Although you have put on some weight (I know, ok?), but that was you. I am out of town now, but will send you the picture I took when I get home.

OS: Who the f(censored) is this person? I am trying my best, but it seems to me that some of my memory has been wiped out completely. I had just started to work back then, and was just having simple life of working, home on weekends....

S (smiling, nervously): Hi Greg, it is such a delight to get your confirmation. I'd love to see the old pictures of mine. I understand that in the old days, scanners were outrageously expensive, and digital cameras were probably still a concept. It was not easy to send pictures.... blah blah

I clicked send, and then all of a sudden, the momory came back. I remember exactly how many times we met, we went to National Palace Museum, we had the conversation regarding definition of 'restaurant', his last email regarding his move, how we lost contact, etc, etc.

Such a relief. I'm not an idiot.

Attached is the picture from Greg. You'll be the judge to tell if that is your dear Sean..

Peace of Mind

It was around 7:20 when I got up this moring. Raining hard. It was 7:45 when I finally walked out of the door. I did not want to walk in the rain for 10 minutes to the bus stop, wait for the bus for 10 minutes, and had to tranfer from bus to metro, then another 10 minutes' walk. I would be soaking wet when I got to school, so I decided to take the taxi. By the time I got there, it was only 8:10. 1 more hour to kill. So I stopped at the Starbucks right acoss the street from my training building, had a cup of coffee and some breakfast. Very relaxing. I finally felt like rested after the tiring business trip and a busy day from yesterday. Now close to midnight, and I'm stilling feeling quite ok. Taking the taxi, 200 dollars. A cup of coffee, 90 dollars. Light breakfast 50 dollars. A peace of mind, priceless.

Nice Design for Commuters

If you commute often enough during rush hour, you'll understand the pain to stand in the train trying to fight your way to hold on to something. This picture is taken in the train of Hong Kong Airport that runs between terminals. I love it, and want Taipei to install something like this in our subway trains.

One More Thing....

Okok, if you watch Apple's product release closely, you'll know I copy this title from Steve Jobs, but how can I miss PopEye when I published the post regarding Krispy Kream and Ben & Jerry? In my mind, I love PopEye as much as KFC, but PopEye is another thing that I cannot get in Taiwan.

So I stopped there, had 2 pieces of fried chicken and a box of rice, which reminds me of Cajun style of rice.. and CHUCKY MONKEY, single scoop in a cup. This is a happy ending of a business trip.

Rainbow

 MM forwarded these rainbow pictures to me. We just had a typhoon in Taiwan. A lot of rain. She was having a bad day with the boss, and happened to see this beautiful rainbow hanging in the sky after having an ugly conservation with him. Too bad, I don't get to see it. Still in Shenzhen now...

Old Photo

 Picasa dug out this picture from my hard drive. Checked the date. It was taken in February 2005. Don't remember where I was, but I guess it was taken by J. Does the face show any kind of happiness?