The news shocked the whole island. No one could have believed it. Our kids, the Red Leaf team, did not just win. They won the World Series! That event, in 1969, started the Little League Baseball fever in Taiwan. For years, the whole island would stay up all night to watch the game and everyone will be celebrating the next day. We did not have much to go for and this was one event that we all waited for every year.

Year after year, our kids brought back the trophies. Then came the year we did not win. People demanded accountability, newspapers ran scathing opinions on the failure of the system, government officials apologized. Several years later, we got our grooves back. But everything had changed. Taiwan was a thriving economy and baseball, little league or else, became a recreation, instead of a national obsession. We won Junior League and Senior League championships on and off. When we won, we were happy. When we lost, heads did not roll anymore.

Last we won was 1996. Every time I heard someone mentioned Williamport, PA, I felt the nostalgia of the whole family, heck, the whole village, staying up and cheering for our team that was playing half a world away. But there isn’t a baseball mitten in my house and my kids never played.

Yesterday, Chinese Taipei played California for the championship. I was glued to the TV and found my heart clung to every pitch. At the end, we lost 3 to 6. Players were in tears and I was sad. My passion for little league, however, was rekindled. I will watch for this event next year and cheer for my home team.

I decided that I like Canada, probably because I always visited in the summer. The sceneries are beautiful and people friendly. English works and stores accept US dollars. Where else can you find wild blossoms with glaciers as backdrop?

People are surprised that I visited Banff in August. If those slopes are meant for skiing, they would rate nothing less than double black diamonds: way out of my league. One of the local waitresses said she never went “up there” except for skiing.

The lakes are breath-taking, glaciers stunning, and hiking trails very satisfying. This is heaven for landscape and wild-life photographers. I can imagine its winter to be even more beautiful. The temperature, however, can go as low as -50°C, indoor.

Click on any picture to see the whole set. (This photo, and some others, are taken by my daughters.)

Day 1, Aug 20th	Arrived Calgary. Rented car and headed west. Instead of rushing to Lake Louise, where we will stay, we Turned into Hwy 1A after the town of Banff for a more scenic route. We had several short stops and took a short hike at Johnston Station; it was like an appetizer for the ensuing 3 days feast. I was stunned when I walked into the hotel room. The window framed the view that stopped all other thoughts and activities. Kids produced their cameras and started clicking. When we realized that there are still daylight to catch, we threw down the bags and ran to the lake side. Days end around 8:30pm here.
Day 2	Started the Plain of Six Glaciers hike around 9am. It was a strenuous hike to reach the teahouse at the top. After a simple lunch, we continued to the lookout point: another more strenuous 1.3km hike. The surreal closeness of the glaciers was worth the work. Hiking back drained all our energy and cold beers was soooo good at the hotel’s Lakeview Lounge.
Day 3	Woke up early and headed Jasper. An hour and half later, we stopped at Columbia Icefield: a chunk of ice big enough to cover the city of Vancouver. A special huge-wheeled bus took us onto the Athbasca Glacier. It was out-of-worldly to walk on 300-meter deep ice. Remember to wear good traction shoes and bring a jacket. The glacier gust was not forgiving. Forty-five minutes of drive later, we stopped at the Athbasca Fall and turned into Hwy 93A. That led us to Mt. Edith Cavell. There an amazing Angelic Glacier, a huge, all-white, winged entity, floated in the mid-air and right in front of us. As we walked closer, we found what seemed like dirt and gravel was actually nearly 20-foot of ice lightly covered with moraine. Several ice caves were at the foot of the glacier. They lured us like honey for bees. Inside the caves was dark and cold. Droplets fell into my collar and I realized this thing was MELTING. I thought of glacier avalanches “Good thing that my remains will be well preserved.”
Day 4	The last stop before leaving the Lake Louise area was Moraine Lake, a preferred alternative many who wished to avoid the crowd and commercialization around Lake Louise. We hiked an easy trail to Consolation Lakes. This less traveled trail passed through woods with a torrent stream on the side. There are sections completely covered by boulders that required careful negotiation and footing. An hour later we arrived the mirror-like lake and understood their namesakes. The serenity was soothing. By mid-afternoon, we came to the town of Banff: charming with lots of shops, restaurants, and bars. I can see brisk business and rowdy crowd in the ski season.
Day 5	What to do for half a day in Calgary? Hmm… We chose Calgary Tower, Art Central, and Eau Claire Market. They are all in the City Center and within walking distance to each others. Honestly, none of them are tourist destinations but interesting enough to hang around. Many buildings in Calgary are connected with a +15 system that allow pedestrians to walk about without getting outside or crossing streets. It also effectively moved the foot-traffic related businesses, café, gallery, bakery, etc., inside. The streets of Calgary are really indoor and on the 2nd floor.

“Would you go back again?” asked one of our house guests several days later. That question seemed more real to him than “Do you recommend it to me?” I blabbed out, “Of course I would!” We probably explore less than a tenth of the park and they all seems worth lingering for hours. “Maybe Yellowstone first,” I thought. “Since I also promised to go back there.”

Wise people not only heed these advices, they have been practicing them for years. You read on for more. I will try to expound on office politics.

Not before pointing out an omission: failure to deliver, the top career killer. You have a job, that job has a purpose and goals. If you screw up, nothing can help you.

So exactly is office politics? It is the understanding of how things really work and what really drive people. Modern corporations, those that survived fierce competition, do not adhere to the managerial hierarchy and budgetary discretion. They function in a much more subtle and complicated way: faster in decision making, product development, and market successes. Look beyond the structure of the organization and observe how things are done: whose opinions matter, who control the critical processes, how resources are allocated.

After that, learn what motivate those key individuals. Most of the time, the motivators are not complicated and simple to observe: sense of accomplishment, sense of right or wrong, recognition, the need to control. Look at the higher part of Maslow’s pyramid, instead of focusing on job security, pay, and career ladder. There is no better way than interacting with these people in earnest. Sometime, keen observation works equally well.

Avoiding office politics could be a career killer. Misunderstanding what it is would be a career suicide.

BMI is so unsatisfactory. Imagine you are inside a tube that is exactly the same height. Now imagine this magic tube can re-arrange your body without hurting you. It will contract and re-arrange until there is no more empty space left. BMI represent the diameter of that tube.

The theory is based on several deeply flawed assumptions:

• People have very similar density.
• Diameter, therefore, is a good proxy for figure.
• Figure, then, is a good proxy for the how much fat in the body.
• That, of course, is a direct proxy to how healthy one is.

With these, they surveyed the population and published guidelines. Soon, governments picked up the concept and published the obesity numbers. It spiraled out of proportion.

Anyone can stand on a scale, compute BMI with a simple calculator, look up the website, and knew where does he or she stand. Government can open the huge database of people’s height and weight and does the same. This is quite powerful. Up until now, no one has come up with a simple (one number, self measurable, huge data already collected) replacement to BMI.

Since what we really want to know is how fat we are, we should substitute BMI with body fat ratio. But all accepted methodologies are basically impossible to do in private, at home, and for free. Enter the SIndex!

The mechanics is simple by design. Measure the circumferences of your waist and hip and divide the sum of them by your height. The idea is also simple: this should be a reasonable substitute to the body fat ratio.

We all knew that most of our stored fat is in either the belly or the hip. My doctor told me that “gut measure” is an excellent predictor to heart diseases. So waist line size is a good proxy for fat contents in the body and also for how healthy one is. Since some store fat on the waist line and other on the hip, we would simply measure both and add them up. The next natural step is to normalize them for height.

I will leave it to you to name this new measure.

小時後讀過幾遍水滸傳,依稀記得林沖,魯志深,武松,宋江. 幾年前在北京買了套田連元的水滸評書. 全套380集,每集半小時,每天上下班,有時聽聽. 轉眼兩年過去,現在聽到宋江打青州.

林沖的柔情,武松的無奈,李逵的直爽,現在的感覺深刻太多了. 從前讀書時沒注意,現在覺得拼命三郎石秀,才是水浒中的真人才. 施耐庵的人物刻畫,佈景描述,歷史批判,是字字入人心. 也真的明白了這書為什麼是四大奇書之一.

人說”男不讀水滸,女不看西廂”. 也有道理,個個都是被逼上梁山,每個都是貪官污吏. 讀了這書,誰還要”功名”呢? 這個”逼”字,貫穿全書. 有點骨氣的人,都能感受那”不得己”的憤怒. 而這些好漢的痛快,也就直接的成了我們的拍案叫好了.

照現在的速度,我還要大半年才能聽完呢. 容後再報.

Some things are just delicious together: dark chocolate and coffee, robust red wine and juicy steak, cold beer and tortilla chips. Capresé salad represents the perfect trio: tomato, fresh mozzarella, and basil leaves. It is almost the simplest dish to prepare. The tricks are all in the ingredients. It is one of my favorite summer dish.

Red tomato, green basil leaves, and white mozzarella cheese look so nice together. If, however, you would sacrifice the look, just a bit, I have experimented a recipe that is a perfect light lunch.

The tomatoes must be ripe, sweet, and flavorful. First core and dice them into large chunks. Simply throw them into a Ziplog sandwich bag. Next dice a third of a fresh mozzarella ball to similar size. Toss into the bag too. Lastly, chop fresh basil leaves into big pieces. This is my favorite part of the recipe. The basil fragrance brings everything out. They into the bag too, of course.

Salt, pepper, and dash of olive oil before sealing the bag and tossing it around for coating. That’s it! We are done. The whole process takes 10 minutes. A lunch in a bag ready to go.

To eat, I empty the sandwich bag into a paper cup and pick them out with a fork. The cheese chunks are all covered with wonderful tomato juice and the basil smell filled my nostrils. And the end, I drank the juice that’s left at the bottom. That’s the best part. Yum.

Our national esteem has been low these days. Toyota is the biggest car company, Iran war feels like VietNam war, Chinese and Indians are taking our jobs, Canada has better health care, Koreans make the best online games. What happened to the United States of America?

In fact, good old USA is still #1 in many, if not most, meaningful categories.

• We are, by far, the richest country in the world. USA’s GDP is over $13 trillions dollars. It is over 27% of world GDP and larger than the sum of the next 4 largest countries (Japan, Germany, China, and UK).
  Per capita, US citizens made more than their counterparts in those countries too: just a bit more than Germans and Brits, 24% more than Japanese, almost 15 times Chinese, and 43 times Indians.
• US is the #1 producer of corn, soybeans, and pretty much all the meats; 3rd in wheat; and 4th in potato. It is fair to say that USA feeds, or even fattens, the whole world. I believe that US farmers are the most productive in the world, probably better than China by more than 50 to 1.
• According to Wall Street Journal, US manufacture 20% of the goods in the world and China only 12%. Global Insight predicted China to catch up only by 2020, in terms of value-added manufacturing.
• US media industry clearly dominates the world. No other country produces the global buzz and craze like US does. Hollywood has long conquered the world in movie entertainment, so has the music industry.
• US has the most advanced medical industry. It dominates the world on pharmaceutical, bio-engineering, and all other medical technologies. Whoever was sick, his best bet will be in the US.
• Microsoft, Oracle, HP, IBM, Dell, Cisco, Intel. Need I say more? Who has the best computing technologies in the world?
• Lastly, US generates the most pollution. Whatever measure, whatever category, we are also #1 in depleting those non-renewable resources.

This country was founded on strong pillars, envied by many. All worthy countries started the race to catch up the US after World War II. Sixty four years later, some of them are showing up in the rear mirror. I don’t think any would catch up in a decade or so. If you consider natural resources and population as the fundamental competitive factors, only EU and China are possible contenders in this arena.

History offers lessons on how empires fell. Americans will be wise to study them.

The Giver Lois Lowry ISBN-13: 978-0440237686

It is a Newbery Medal winner, for young adults. Older adults, like myself, will certainly enjoy it as well. With an idea not complicated or sophisticated, Lois Lowry captivate the readers skillfully. I felt and identified with Jonas throughout his transformation. It is a quick read. But if you start late, prepare to miss the early meeting the next morning.

A future society chose to eliminate individuality and accepted the consequences that include the lost of biological family, job decision, longevity, colors, and music. In exchange, it has perfect harmony, peace, and no pains of any kind. Generations later, no one remembered how it was, let alone trying to change anything.

Except for one. This person kept the wisdom for the rest of the society. The wisdom, however, came from remembering and experiencing all the pains the society had endured before: crimes, chaos, wars, hunger, cold, burn, etc.; none of those existed in that society.

This worked until one such wise person disagreed with the original choice. His new partner, Jonas, gave him the last necessary ingredient and that society fell apart.

I found myself disagreeing with the premise of the society cannot have both individuality and free of pains. This disagreement, however, is exactly Lois Lowry’s point. She made me think and stirred up a small discussion at dinner table.

Isn’t that what books are for?

First time I squatted, with only the 45-pound rod, my thighs and butts were sore for days. That seriously demoralized me that I am clearly not as fit as I have let myself to believe. Then someone taught me that our muscles degenerate very quickly. Many people couldn’t even finish two sets of squats, let alone hurting afterward. Yep. He was kind to restore my self-esteem.

Mike found out my experiment and gave/lent me this Manta Ray gadget (not the fish). It is an apparatus that snaps onto the rod before squatting, much better than the wrap-around pad provided in the gym. I have since worked myself up to 100 pounds.

I also found another jogging route at work. It is slightly longer, 2.6 miles, and crossed three traffice lights. But I get to run through a stretch of gravel path next to a creek. Sweating through the jersey with music blasting through the earphones is actually quite relaxing. I found myself sorting through many issues during those runs. This is the time to really appreciate California summers.

My weight, somehow, refuses to come down. I told myself that weight lifting is adding muscles. But Kid and Wife busted my excuse by pointing to my bulging love handles. Oh well…

Even Michael Phelps cannot outswim the suit. The international swimming officials now want to outlaw those hi-tech swim suits so that athletes can compete on their own talents, instead technology or funding. The ideology could be right, but the money is not. The swim suit industry stands to lose big and that is not good for the sport. I propose two options for the industry to consider. Note that they are not mutually exclusive.

• Sprayed-on: It is the body wrapper. Put on your standard whatever look-good suit. Pay $100 and stand in the paint stall before the competition. A high-tech film will cover your entire body and make you as smooth as fish. It also add a tiny bit of buoyancy, but no one will notice.

  The film is warm water solvable. When you hit shower, it melts and flows down the drain.

• The Jet Pump: This suit has many tiny tubes along the motion line. As the athlete moves, water naturally flow into them. The muscular actions will squeeze them out and create tiny jets that help propel the swimmer.

  The suits are graded on their propelling power and amateur athletes compete based on a handicap system, similar to golf. Professionals will all use the same and there is no issue.

  Note that the spray-on will plug all tubes and essentially remove propulsion. Just wash your suit in hot water after the competition.

The idea is to enable commercialism in sports, not suffocating them. Money makes thriving sports. Don’t forget that.

This post is sponsored by Swimwear.