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taichimaster
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Country: United States
State: Illinois
Gender: Male
Interests: Life in general --
Expertise: Modeling -- data and processing modeling, of course. Do you think I would do wear-some-skinny-shorts-and-walk-down-that-platform type modeling? Silly you.
Methodology
Occupation: Computer related
Industry: Other
Message: message me
Member Since:
3/19/2004
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| My Acura broke down this Thursday. The transmission failed. The symptom began in the morning -- the engine raced once it speed above 40 mph, as if it slipped to neutral. It recoved when I slowed down to 30 mph. I was concerned about it that I made an appointment with the dealer that morning for me to take the car in on Friday. On Thursday afternoon, I had a 3pm meeting and a 4pm meeting -- my meetings were all via teleconferences. The 3pm call ended 30 minutes early. So I thought I would take the 4pm call from home instead. I started driving the car home at 3:30. After about 15 minutes driving, the transmission problem get wores. It slipped even at 20 mph. At time, it went to neutral totally at any speed. I was scared, and decided I would go to the dealer directly instead. I was about 5 miles from the dealer then. After turning around, I had to drive at 1st gear at about 5 mph all the way. At time, I had to stop, turn off the car completely, let it reset, and restart before I could proceed. My most concern was I had to cross a rail road track, and had to make a left turn on a busy road. Luckily I got to the dealer safely. Of course I missed my 4pm meeting. The dealer was nice enough to take me home in a courtesy car. The car needs a new transmission. It will take several days to fix. I went back to the dealer Friday to pick up a loaner for the duration. There was a letter from Honda Thursday. It said that there was a class action law-suit against Honda, and my car belongs to the class. The law-suit was about the exact condition that I experienced early that day. I figured that financially, I am covered because of the law-suit and becuase I do have an extended warranty. It appears that the car failure was not a matter of whether, it was just a matter of when. All things considered, I think this incidence could not have been happened to me at a better time. Had it not failed this Thursday, with this letter from Honda, I would have concerned about my safety everywhere I go with the Acura. Since I was planning to go to Florida in it this winter, I would have to take a diferent car instead, or else concern about it all the way. And if it fail at the deep of winter, and Chicago is known to have some very bitter and dangerous winter, or if it fail somewhere on the way to florida, I would be either at deep financial or physical trouble. As is, I only experienced some minor inconvenient. And my reward for this inconvenient was the opportunity to test drive brand new Acura. The loaner is a brand new 2006 TSX. This TSX is very nice. It is only a ted smaller than the TL. It has a 200+ hp engine, XM radio, and nice and roomy interior. Victor said this is his dream car. I let him drive it to the dealer this morning to pick up the Subaru I left there Friday when I pick up the TSX. He said this was his best driving experience. At the dealer this morning, we even had the chance to look around at the many new TL Type S at the lot. All in all, I am very happy at what has happened to me with this incident. I am not much a lemonade man. So, I just hope that there will no more lemonade for me. | | |
| Adams boldly states that this is "everything you need to know about personal investing." In just 129 words, nine simple points, one page you have the unabridged "Unified Theory of Everything Financial." That's it. Everything! Annotations are mine. - Make a will (I have it, but need update)
- Pay off your credit cards (done that, for the past 10 years)
- Get term life insurance if you have a family to support (yes, have it)
- Fund your 401k to the maximum (yes)
- Fund your IRA to the maximum (yes)
- Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it (yes)
- Put six months worth of expenses in a money-market account (only 3 months)
- Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker and never touch it until retirement (close, 85% stock, 15% bond, Charles Schwab discount broker)
- If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio
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| The meeting ended at 12 noon sharp, and it was time for me to hurry up and wait -- hurry up and rush to the airport, and then wait for boarding, wait for taking off, wait to getting off, and wait for paying the ticket. It took 7 hours of hurrying and waiting to finally return home. Before that, we started our 2nd day of discussion at 8:30. I was to have 90 minutes to make my case, but by the time BP finished his talk and our round table discussion, I only had less than 30 minutes. I had prepared 12 slides for my talk, with 30 minutes left, I would have to speak really fast, at litle bit under 3 minutes per slide. If I did that, none of my points would be conveyed. So I went ad lib and choose to focus on "attention as a scare commodity" as my central point of my presentation on collaboration. We agreed that the technology for collaboration in general, "attention" protection in particular, is inadequate today, and agreed to revisit this subject in 12 months. | | |
| Well, the meeting went well -- it is not my turn to present yet. The discussion was intense. One company (a big international farm product company) discussed the important of security with unstructured data. They are trying to embed security identity measure in all messages that go outside of their company, so that unauthorized can get the message, but cannot read it. And the message will be self-distruct when an attempt is made to compromize its security. An international beauty product company talked about the importance of blogging, and the right and wrong way to use blogs in marketing. It appears that their products are primarily demand side product, it is best for them to let the customer tell them what exactly are needed. Supply side products need to be sold. An international petrolium product company talked about the many different means they are experimenting to promote collaboration for their workers in 100 different countries with possibly 100 different languages and culture. We will continue with the discussion over dinner. Will be fun. | | |
| The first night I stayed at this Sanctuary was the most comfortable hotel night ever in my whole 56 year life. The bed is big, sturdy. The room is quiet - everything here is of top class (may not be the FIRST class stuff by millionaire standard, but is first class to my standard -- my standard is pretty high for an average persion.) The decoration is homely, simple, functional, and comfortable.
Before retiring to this room for the night, I dined with my colleagues for a very nice steak dinner, which was after a 30 minutes of social on the outside balcony with camp fire to warm us in the spring-like cool temperature, in a resort which is several hundred feet above city of Phoenix, on the foot hill of the Camelback mountain. Before that, I went hiking with two colleagues, up the Camelback mountain. It was fun!
Today, it will be all business. I am representing AT&T, while several others representing other big corporations, such as Cargill International. We will exchange information about our strategy in dealing cross-company collaboration, what work and what does not work. I have so much to share, and so much to learn. I hope the knowledge exchange worth the $315 a night hotel room I am staying for this two nights. | | |
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