Tiring Night...

Eventually I won in the battle of domain, somehow I really can't imagine that. The process was so dramatic!
The initial bid was placed two days ago of US$60. The price was going up steadily to US$111 last night. I planned to observe till the time was mature for me to place further bids. I kept on monitoring, unaware that a man with seemingly Japanese name suddenly placed a high bid (US$512).
When there was only one hour left, I started my attack. However high the bid I placed over $111 I was outbidded by that Japanese, finally I arrived in the newest high bid of $537 (that was already over HK$4000). The damnable HKBN suddenly disconnected itself in this very moment (probably some midnight maintenance without notice), I turned out to connect CUHK VPN and continue the bid. During the last 15 minutes I was so nervous and kept walking around the house, in the last 5 minutes a guy from nowhere suddenly placed a higher bid! His bid extends the deadline for 3 minutes, we kept outbidding each others and I kept calculating the amount in HKD. Finally when my bid reached US$762 (HK$5943), I decided to let it go, switched off the PC and went to sleep. Expecting that guy will continue to outbid me and won the auction, to my surprise I found that he didn't. Eventually I got the domain with HK$6K.

The Battle for Domain

SnapNames: Home Page
Tonight I will go on a war to fight for a .com domain name in an online auction. The deadline is supposed to be 4am HKT. Probably I will stay awake all night doing assignment.
I have been mointoring the name for a few months, I realized that it was about to expire so I keep checking its status. It ended up that a number of people is back-ordering, some are really foolish and started bidding too early, and the price keep going up. The following few hours will bear key influence on the outcome (it will be US daytime). Pray that I can place bid at the right time and got it at the right price...

A hard choice

My Taekwondo Class

Yan left me a comment in the previous post, urging me to give up the part time (ie. taekwondo classes) for the time being. Indeed, many of my friends and colleagues suggested the same thing.
I have been coaching Taekwondo since I got my black belt in 13, now it has been 10 years. Time flies and my schedule got much tighter, indeed I should have given up this sports a long time ago. Now I am staying, as what I am feeling, solely due to the responsibilities that I have on my students.
Currently I have two classes, one on Friday and one on Saturday. To be frank, I would regard the Friday classes as a voluntary work: the income is so unstable and I can't get paid without intolerable delays. Yet I'd also consider the Friday class as the main motivation for me to carry on. As long as the students are self-behaved and enthusiastic to pursue improvement, I'll always be there.
In the last class, I have confiscated all my students' belts due to their poor performance in patterns. If any of my students can ever read this, just wanna let you know that one has to work hard to gain his recognition, one hour a week is not enough to help you on this (the same applies to other activities as well). Pull yourself together, some days later you will find it worthwhile.

YAAA!! I Feel Bad!

All the day I am dry coughing... you see? Just after I have declared myself as a stomache victim, right after that I had been coughing all the time nonstop...
Right before the two exams in early December, I have just received three assignments from CU that is due at around the same time. Can anyone advise me how to rest earlier?

Developers' Passion

When Microsoft says: Your Potential, Our Passion. They are referring to a passion to enlarge their empire and boost their revenue...
Down to the basis, the poorest programmer in the world has his passion too! A passion to solve problems. When my HKBN connection tends to disconnects several times a day, I can tolerate it no longer and the first thought was to write a small program that can detect the connection and reconnect it once it breaks. Though at last I have downloaded an incumbant product that can achieve the task.
I tend to write a customized ERP program to manage my ebooks and MP3 too, but after I have finished the current projects.

November Jukebox

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD
(George Weiss / Bob Thiele)



I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' 'How do you do?'
They're really saying 'I love you'

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world"

現場環境安全!!

Really can't imagine that I have failed in the first aid test!!! I was so astonished that I have failed the CPR part and the only mistake I have made was forgetting to state the environment was safe.
Well the examiner was so righteous to uphold those ossified principle.. It is okay for me to pay $130 to retake the exam!
Seems I am not at all lucky these days, for those who can read this, better stay away from me...

Project Management

Once I have attended a course about project management during undergraduate studies, for which the lecturer was a project manager of HK Jockey Club. The most inspiring concept he has conveyed was "I treat everything in my life as projects".
Managing a project needs clarifying the objectives, feasibility anaylsis, risk assessment and mitigation, time and cost control, testing and evaluation.... So much sophistication if one has to manage everything this way! Ironically I am adopting this approach, with a simplified procedure.
Time is so tight and I must have the best utilization. Outlook and PocketPC do help me a lot in scheduling. Yet the crux is simply "No Procrastination"! I was so stupid as I should have realized that long ago. Maybe I can still have room for more rest and exercise? I am still working things out...

Weird Feeling...

Don't know when I start having this feeling: I gonna die very soon...
These two days I have been feeling strange up on my chest, seems as if it is empty and I can't feel my heart beating. Or maybe it's some kinda stomache which creates the illusion.
But surely it alerts me to spot on my health. My schedule is so full that I hardly can have exercise. When I have to work OT (though seldom these days) or go to school after work, I tend to have "ding" dinner at 11pm. This somehow reminds me that I am tough, but also foolish.
And today my boss analyse my 時辰八字, and found that I am such a poor guy. Seems I won't get rich all the way, and have two harsh years by 1998 and 2019. 1998 was true as it was HKCEE, I really regard that as a turning point in my life. So what about 2019? I shall be 38... Well, I may have died before that... +_+"

Why not you?

Click play to view...
I can't deny that in terms of mere contents this is one of the most inspiring TV commercial I have ever seen. I would be very content if I can ever achieve one of those listed.
Ironically I have searched the web for a whole night, putting a lot of efforts to make the video published here. Special thanks to Gary for making the MPEG1 to wmv encoding.

Happy Halloween !!

Can't believe that's me!! I was again very busy on Saturday, but still I had to free up some time for a halloween party after my colleague wedding party. It was so crowded in Lan Kwai Fong, the place was flooded with vampires, witches, monsters and spidermen... I joined my friends late and once I arrived, they began to do the make up for me. After a couple of photoshots a man came and offered me an opportunity to scare his child (what a dad)... The kid screamed so loudly and the whole restaurant was watching!!