I just got flown in to Illinois to see my only grandmother who suffered a bad stroke and it appears that she will not ever regain consciousness.

I want to share feedback that Southwest Airline is the best, most deaf-friendly airline that I’ve ridden on. They don’t do seat assignments, just A, B, or C group but that doesn’t matter as they will let deaf passengers go in first. All you have to do is to tell them that you’re Deaf.

I was able to find a voucher for only $325 and booked the next soonest available flight and got in Illinois the next day. So, even if you use the best flight search engine like kayak.com or websites like Expedia.com or Travelocity.com, I guarantee that you won’t find the same deal within that short amount of time.

Another cool thing about Southwest Airline is they don’t do stupid late fees, so if you missed your flight, no problem, just wait for the next flight at no extra cost or fines.

Those are enough reason that I will become their frequent miles member and apply for the card.

Thank you, Southwest.

Time to get this out of draft and push it.

…Today is the first day of November, the month of thanksgiving and December, probably everyone’s favorite month, rolls in. The year, 2007, closes its door on the last day and 2008 is up next. My mom will be having her 64th birthday in January and I shall have my 27th birthday that next month, February.

It’s just going too fast.

Rapidly expiring, I’ll only have three years left before I turn 30. That very thought has propelled me to re-evaluate what’s going on in my life. My first six years in my twenties has been pretty good, considering how everything has turned out. It’s been 3 years since I wore my graduation gown and shook hands with Al Simone, the highly-respected ex-president for RIT. My college days was pretty good; I’ve managed to balance fraternity life and school, carrying a gpa of 3.4 and managed to secure 4 straight co-ops in consecutive summers, even after the 9/11 event and while I was working, I was envious of my friends who worked in kids’ camps or went backpacking in Europe.
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Cool! only 10 miles away. It’s gonna be my classifieds everyday.

Tue Nov 13 2818
Depart San Jose(SJC) at 06:30 AM
Arrive in Phoenix(PHX) at 09:15 AM 3333
Change planes in Phoenix(PHX) departing at 10:55 AM
Arrive in St. Louis(STL) at 02:50 PM

Learned something new about this guy from my native country. He scored a 210 on the IQ test.

From Wikipedia,

Kim Ung-Yong (born March 7, 1963) is a Korean former child prodigy. He scored a 210 IQ on the Stanford-Binet test according to the Guinness Book of World Records. He began to learn differential calculus at the age of three. He was able to read and write in Japanese, Korean, German, and English by his fourth birthday. At the age of four, on November 2, 1967, he solved complicated differential and integral calculus problems on Japanese television, demonstrated his proficiency in German, English, Japanese, and Korean, and composed poetry.

Kim was a guest student of physics at Hanyang University from the age of three until he was six.[1]. At the age of seven he was invited to the United States by NASA.[1]. He finished his university studies, eventually getting a Ph.D in physics at Colorado State University [1] before he was 15. In 1974, during his university studies, he began his research work at NASA[1] and continued this work until his return to Korea in 1978.

When he returned to Korea, he decided to switch from physics to civil engineering and eventually received a doctorate in that field. Kim was offered the chance to study at the most prestigious universities in Korea, but instead chose to attend a provincial university.

As of 2007 he also serves as adjunct faculty at Chungbuk National University.

I still wonder why Koreans tend to be smart. Four languages by his fourth birthday? Shit and that makes it no excuse for me not to learn how to read/write Korean. At least I know two languages, ASL and English. :-)

Still can’t believe my eyes even I work there. What’s even more impressive is that profits keep going up while its operation costs goes down.

About time!

Google Talk and AIM Finally a Reality

Nearly two years after Google strategically invested $1 Billion for 5% stake of AOL, Google Talk and AIM services will finally be integrated.

I’ve just signed up to run in the Habitat for Humanity 12 Annual Home Run, hosted by Stanford University, so I’m going to need your help in donating some money towards the organization!

One sack of cement……..

$10

One sturdy front door………
$275

One complete kitchen………..
$5,000

Giving a hard working family a chance to own their own home…

Priceless .

Participate in the 12th Annual Stanford Habitat for Humanity Home Run!

It is a 5K/10K walk/ run benefiting Habitat for Humanity and Global Partners for Development on Sunday, Nov 11.

Habitat for Humanity works with people from all walks of life to develop communities and build affordable ownership housing, in which families can live, grow and build their future. These families receive a “hand up,” rather than a “hand out.” Partner families invest 500 hours of their own labor—sweat equity—into building their houses alongside community and corporate volunteers. After the house is built, it is sold to partner families at no profit and financed with zero interest mortgages. These payments will go towards the construction of other homes.

Global Partners for Development partners with local communities in Eastern Africa, striving to end poverty and hunger through numerous projects that include development of clean water sources, child nutrition, medical and health care, primary and vocational education, and women’s economic self-reliance.

Race Details:
Location : Pac 10 Plaza (next to Stanford Stadium)
Race Course: 5K walk/run and 10k run courses wind through campus along Campus Dr.
Registration Fees:
Pre-registration (By Nov. 4th) = $10 for Stanford Students; $25 other runners/walkers
Day of registration (Nov. 11th) = $15 for Stanford Students; $30 other runners/walkers

Ways to Register:
1) Online at http://www.active.com/page/Event_Details.htm?event_id=1461062
2) Fill out a flyer ( http://www.stanford.edu/group/habitat/hr07flyerfront.pdf) and mail to:
Stanford Habitat for Humanity
Haas Center for Public Service
Stanford University
562 Salvatieera Walk
Stanford, CA 94305
3) On Race Day starting at 7:45am in Pac 10 Plaza.

DONATIONS and FUNDRAISING:
If you are unable to participate in the event, but would still like to help Habitat for Humanity and Global Partners for Development make a tangible difference in the lives of families, you can donate or fundraise online at http://www.active.com/donate/homerun07. Our online donations goal for the Home Run 2007 is $5000! The award for the top fundraiser of this event will win a plane ticket courtesy American Airlines.

For More info: habitat.stanford.edu

-Stanford Habitat for Humanity
562 Salvatierra Walk
Stanford, CA 94305
stanfordhomerun@gmail.com

Just found this info. Didn’t know we could share starred items from our Google Reader. Cool!

Share Starred Items, from Google Reader

Easily share starred items in Google Reader with this simple how-to from Tech-Recipes:

* From Google Reader, click the Settings Link in the upper right hand corner.
* Click the Tags tab.
* Click the Private link beside your starred items.
* The text will change to public and links will appear that allow you to share your starred items feed link.

I recently bought a nice-looking external hard drive from Vantec. Since I have both PC and Mac, I need to format the hard drive in FAT32 filesystem and by Windows Vista’s disk management, it doesn’t give you the option to format with FAT32, only in NTFS. That’s no good because Mac cannot write to NTFS, it can only read the filesystem. With some Googling, there is a turnaround to this. The command line is your solution.

1. Go to ‘run’ from the start button and type ‘cmd’ to bring up the command window.
2. Type this in the command line: format (Drive letter): /FS:FAT32

That’s all! The format process will take a while, at least it will give you the percent it’s completing at.

I subscribe to Google’s investing email subscription and saw someone posted that Google is now the 5th highest-valued company in the U.S.

It’s time once again to step back, pause, and marvel at the growth of Google. As of the close of trading today, 10/30/2007, a company that is roughly a decade old and that has been a publicly traded company
for only a little over 3 years is now the *5th* largest company in the US by market cap.

A couple months ago we were roughly 15th. Companies this large don’t
usually shift around Consolidation Immediately, especially in the upward direction. We’ve grown and much of the rest of the market has shrunk recently. In trading today we went up over 2% and closed with a market cap of $216.86B (according to Yahoo Finance) while Proctor and Gamble, the previous #5 went down 4%, closing at $215.18B (after hours the gap continued to widen). Some of the other companies we’ve passed recently include Walmart, Johnson and Johnson, Chevron, Cisco, Citigroup, and Bank of America. The only larger US companies by market cap are now AT&T, Microsoft, GE, and Exxon.

Worldwide, Google appears to have just broken into the top 20 based on data from a recent article, but I don’t know how far in. (It’s harder to get a good up-to-date list of top companies by market cap worldwide. If someone knows a good site to do this, let me know.)

Wow!

Just experienced my first earthquake in California!

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/nc40204628.htm, thanks Kyung

Version #3: This report supersedes any earlier reports of this event.
This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

A moderate earthquake occurred at 8:04:54 PM (PDT) on Tuesday, October 30, 2007.
The magnitude 5.6 event occurred 8 km (5 miles) NNE of Alum Rock, CA.
The hypocentral depth is 9 km ( 6 miles).

Magnitude: 5.6 – regional moment magnitude (Mw)
Time: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 8:04:54 PM (PDT)
Distance from: Alum Rock, CA – 8 km (5 miles) NNE (31 degrees)
Milpitas, CA – 11 km (7 miles) E (91 degrees)
San Jose City Hall, CA – 15 km (9 miles) NE (45 degrees)
Sunol-Midtown, CA – 17 km (10 miles) NE (45 degrees)
Coordinates: 37 deg. 25.9 min. N (37.432N), 121 deg. 46.5 min. W (121.776W)
Depth: 9.2 km (5.7 miles)
Location Quality: Excellent

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

Perfect! My parents and I have been talking about going on a cruise especially to Alaska and there’s a tour for Deaf people!

Alaska Deaf Cruise Tour 2008

I’m gonna play for a team called the Gold Rush. The tournament is this weekend, starting with 4v4 on Friday and 8v8 on Saturday. Hope we all play well. I’m gonna be like Deion Branch. We’re same height, run sharp patterns, swifty and have good hands.

And Bobby Knight said this, “The key is not the “will to win” . . . everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.”

Seth’s blog:How to get traffic for your blog

Wow, the list is good. 56 of them but I’m picking some for here.

1. Use lists.
2. Be topical… write posts that need to be read right now.
3. Learn enough to become the expert in your field.
5. Be timeless… write posts that will be readable in a year.
6. Be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.
7. Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
9. Write short, pithy posts.
19. Do email interviews with the well-known.
24. Post your photos on flickr.
28. Assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.
37. Keep tweaking your template to make it include every conceivable bell or whistle.
38. Write about blogging.
39. Digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.
40. Invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.
45. Dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.
46. Edit yourself. Ruthlessly.
48. Be patient.
49. Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
51. Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
56. Write stuff that people want to read and share.