Traffic Ticket Spam.

I received the spam email which asks to pay for the traffic ticket for speeding.
I received this email on 5/6 for the speeding on 4/27 at 7:25AM in 55mph zone.
At the beginning, I thought I might be caught by the police.
But then I was thinking about where I drive with high speed on 4/27.

1. Since I changed my vehicle to the hybrid car, I rarely drive at very high speed.
I feel that the gas pedal is heavier than the car I used drive, and the instantaenous mpg displayer deters me pushing the car as well.

2. I felt very weird about this email because the body part of the message doesn't include any of my personal and my vehicle information. The message just says the open the attached document for payment instruction or whatever. Look at the sender's email. It's not from nys government. It was a gmail sender, so it could be from anyone. Furthermore that the attached file is a zipped file. Why not a single PDF file?  So I felt strange and didn't want to open the attachment.


3. I tried to recollect where I drive on 4/27. 4/27 was Saturday. What!? Saturday?
Hmm but wait a minute, when I was caught speeding? 7:25AM?? AM!!
I didn't remember what I did on this Saturday.  I'm absolutely positive that I was in my bed at 7:25AM of any Saturday!  At this point I was sure that this email was the spam.

4. I searched online to see that whether this spam was alerted previously and I found it.
The following link shows the spam email that exactly as what I received.
Same time, same date, same speeding zone,.....

http://techhelplist.com/index.php/spam-list/216-uniform-traffic-ticket-virus

I must be really attentive when checking emails!
This is something I should avoid to do when I'm too tired!

Haagen Dazs, Gelato Line.

In my most recent shopping, I found a Gelato series of Haagen Dazs for the first time.
I haven't bought any icecream since the winter break, but I bought two flavors with no hesitation.
I bought "cappucino" and "vanilla bean".
I only tasted "cappucino" so far, but it is delicious.
You should try them right now!


http://www.haagendazs.com/Products/Gelato/

MPG game.

On January 27th, I purchased an used 2005 Civic Hybrid.
One thing I like about this car is that it has lots of meters in the instrumental panel.
There are a MPG for a current travel and current instantenous MPG are displayed.in digital format.
At first I liked it.
While driving, I'm in "playing a game" mode.
I'm trying to improve and maximize the MPG displayed in the panel.
I'm getting more sensitive when pushing pedals.
Should I brake really gently? Will it increase the amount of battery recharging?
It's a great pleasure to attain the MPG value higher than the value it is advertised.

But soon after I realized that this really distracts me.
My eyes are too frequent to look at the digital numbers keep changing.
I guess I shouldn't play this game too much. Instead, I should focus on road.

Breaking the Abstinence in a Day.

I was invited for the dinner this evening.

My host knew very well about my favorite.

After having a gorgous dinner, the dessert comes.

Fruits, cakes, ....and ice-creams!

I thought that it would be impolite to decline it!

What a fantastic excuse to break my abstinence from ice-cream!

Oh well, my abstinence lasts only one month and one day.

Very the next day from my previous post on "no ice-cream!"

Abstinence from Ice-Cream.

I'm not having ice-creams for more than one month!
The last time I had ice-creams into my stomach is January 4th of 2013.

I was afraid of any kinds of syndrome for this abstinence.
So far I'm not looking for ice-cream eagerly.
Actually when I do shopping, I still always walk to and stop in front of ice-cream aisle.
I was thinking about buying several quarts of Hargen Datz this evening.
But my curiosity prevails my desire to have sweets.
I'm wondering how long I can survive without having any ice-cream.

"Take Five"

I like "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck Quartet so much.
This is one of pieces that I really want to be able to play on piano someday.

Recently I purchased the music book for beginner that include "Take Five".
This sheet is not satisfactory at all because it is too simplified and it is in different tonality.
But I think this is a good starting point for me.
It is good for me to learn melody and rhythms...and to practice reading the sheet.
After studying this "Take Five" for "beginner", I would like to try different versions.
But I think that I will need at least one month to be able to play it (for beginners) comfortably.

Add Something into a Ricecooker.

 I just have to mix it with rice into a ricecooker and just wait for 50 minutes or so.
Then I can enjoy flavored rice with mixtures such as mushrooms and crabs.
But I had never come up with idea of mixing something other than products on markets that is solely for mixing with rice.

When I was reading some article, I learned that some people add butter into the ricecooker to make the rice less sticky.  I've never thought about adding butter into the ricecooker.
I thought that it would be fun to try adding various things into the ricecooker.

For my first challenge, I added several scoops of salmon flakes.
Well, it is not a big adventure yet it is a huge first step for me enjoying cooking.
This year, I would like to cook more by myself and train my taste sensation.

By the way, I liked the smell of salmon from the ricecooker.
But I thought that I should've add more when I was eating it. Too frugal am I?

Journey to Find the Next Career.

I have to keep studying to improve myself, our community, and the world.

First I need to figure out the most effective way to use myself.
Is a high school math teacher the answer to it? 
Right now I'm on the journey to find the answer to this question.
I know I should find the answer quickly because time I have is finite.
But please give me a year or two.

Help somebody, not everybody.

I watched a movie "Bernie."

Bernie is a real volunteer.
He works for people of small town Carthage.
He is really happy to work for people and he doesn't work for his own profit.
He found the significance of his life is to work for people.

His life seemed to be a successful one until he met Marjorie, an evil-minded widow.
He tried to be supportive to her like he did to other people.
It's not apparent that he fell in love to Marjorie or he simply tried to rescue Marjorie in solitude.
Anyway Bernie's life is destined to jail at the moment he decided to help Marjorie.
Her strong desire to keep Bernie in her hands resulted him spending more time for her and less time for the rest of people in Carthage.
His frustration was summed up because he couldn't do what he wants (the commuinty service.)
After a while, he killed Marjorie. 
He concealed her death for 9 months.
He keep acted to deceive people as Marjorie is still alive, and he still worked vigorously for the community.  He spent Marjorie's abundant legacy for community with no hesitation, too.

I found Bernie really scary.
This Mr. Nice Guy can easily deceive people.
He doesn't have himself.  He doesn't show any characteristics. He doesn't have his preference.
Is he really a human? 

From this movie, I thought that I must be selective.
I can't support everybody in the world nor everybody I meet.
Two reasons: my lifetime is limited and helping someone could hurt others.
If I try to be Mr. Nice Guy to everybody, I will be tormented like Bernie did.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1704573/


 

Beyond the Individualism

Ichiro Suzuki is definitely one of my most favorite baseball player.
What he had accomplished so far is simply astonishing.
He is goal-oriented, and he works really hard to accomplish many feat.
He shows us the significance of continuous work
Even though he is just playing baseball, nontheless his influence is far-reaching.
How many "I'm not a baseball fan" guys show respect (or disrespect) on Ichiro?
He is in steady declining, but I believe that he still can play at competitive level.

By the way, I'm not a Yankee fan. I'm on SF and Oakland.
From SF's recent success and the failure of Bonds' era, I believe that an outstanding team chemistry prevails simple arithmetic sums of outstanding players.
I see Ichiro as one of the most skilled player and he can inspire many people; however at the same time, I see him as highly self oriented player who lacks the ability to cheer up his teammates.
Ichiro's join to SF was going to destroy the positive atmosphere in SF's bench.
That's why I'm very happy to hear that he signed Yankees for 2 years.
Will he recognize the importance of team chemistry and the upper limit of contribution by a single player? I'm looking forward to see Ichiro's evolution while he is in NY.

Which brand of Bottle of Water Tastes the Best?

Sampling 10 students of statistics class, I tried to figure out which brand of bottle of water tastes the best.

I asked them to rate each (label masked) between 1 and 5 for the following 8 brand.

Aquafina
Dasani
Evian
Fiji
Poland Spring Water (the most inexpensive among them)
Smart Water
Volvic
Voss  (the most expensive)


The result of this simple test was Fiji and Smart Water taste the best, Evian the worst.

I tasted them by myself separetely (except Fiji), and I found

Volvic and Smart Water tastes better than the others.
Didn't find any difference between Aquafina, Dasani, PSW, and Voss.
I didn't like Evian.

I should buy Fiji to taste it because I've never tried it before.
But tap water, 1000 times cheaper than PSW, is replaceable for my dull tongue.
I probably can't recognize much difference anyway...

A Happy News...for me.

Another MLB related story.

I'm so happy to see Marco Scutaro returning to SF. $20 mil in 3 years.
Pagan's speed with Scutaro's ability to advance runners will be a great weapon for SF.
More chance to score in the 1st inning, more chance to win the game!

But I didn't expect a 3 year deal. I hope he will stay in good shape for 3 years and won't be traded away like he was when he was in Redsox.



http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20121204&content_id=40514076&vkey=news_sf&c_id=sf#disqus_thread

The Parity, Even and Odd.

I just heard that MLB's Huston Astros is going to transfer from NL Central to AL West in 2013 season.  Now five ball clubs will be belonged in each division in each league.
That seems fair. I always felt strange that there were only 4 teams in AL West.
But I couldn't expect this to happen at all for one reason, the parity.

There are 30 MLB teams, currently 16 in NL and 14 in AL.
Because both leagues have even number of clubs, they can play against each other everyday.
But from 2013,  there will be 15 NL teams and 15 AL teams.
Then, one team in each league have no opponents in its own league.
So I couldn't see this become a reality.

It seems that an interleague game will be played somewhere everyday.
The next season's schudule intrigues me!

First of all, I expect that the "interleague period" in May and June will be discontinued.
There are 15 teams in AL x 5 teams in one division of NL x 6 games/series = 450 interleague games.
There are about 162 days in the regular season.
So roughly 450/162 = 3 interleague games will be required each day.
If there are 3 interleague games each day, the remaining 24, 12 in each league, can face each other.

Calender

I'm not skilled at utilizing a calender.

For year 2013, I plan to buy  calenders and do my best to use it for better life.

1. Look at the calender, make plans (like trip plans) before the school ask me to do some task on the weekend!
2. Insert the weather of the day into the calender. I would be fun.
3. Insert the deadlines for my tasks. For example, "finish reading '~' by 1/31" or "be able to play "fur elise" by 1/31". 
4. Use it as my notebook. Unlike scratch papers, calender won't be discarded or be lost.

I think if I use it wisely, I can improve my time management.

This month is the trial period.

"None was started by one person."

"None was started by one person." by Ernesto Sirolli.

Recently I gain a bit of interest in the Africa.
I never had any curiosity in Africa.
After restudying some geography, I began to wonder how the life of typical Africans are like.
I've never been there and I'm not willing to visit there because of the safety issue.
But is there anything I can do to help improving their lifestyle....from the distance?
My current solution is that I can't do anything. I have no power to change it in significant way.

While watching Ernesto Sirolli's talk on TED, I realized that I'm lacking the concept of working as team.  I guess I'm still believing "I'm almightly" in some way.
I must learn how to get help where I can't do very well.
Stop trying to do everything by myself!



http://www.ted.com/speakers/ernesto_sirolli.html