Miffy

FM and UB were having lunch. As it’s a buffet, each of them is trying out and enjoying the food they got. Below is an interesting conversation occurred during the lunch.

FM: Um… the egg taste rare, have you tried yours?

UB: Let me try. Hmm… it’s kinda rare, it doesn’t taste like regular egg.

FM: Yes, not only the taste, but its texture doesn’t feel like egg too.

UB: You’re right. It gave a rubber like feeling. Maybe the preservative makes them this way.

FM: They have Teriyaki chicken wing here.

(FM starts to eat the chicken wing bit by bit)

UB: Don’t worry about the ‘wing,’ it’s preserved very well so it won’t get spoil easily ……

(FM is thinking: Oh, in order to keep the wing eatable, they put in a lot of preservative into the chicken wing? So, it’s very bad for health then. )

FM: So they put a lot of preservative into the wing?

UB: Oh, no, no, no… I’m talking about your ring, not wing!

Last year, dad brought some mooncakes back from Hong Kong. This year, due to new restriction on bringing mooncakes, dad didn’t bring any of them back. Hence, no mooncake for this year. Tonight, we eat out as a celebration for the Mid-Autumn Festival. When we arrived at Mandarin House, Gary already arrived. Mom is the first one who saw Gary, and I wondered how she knows that’s Gary as she didn’t see him before. When I looked over, Gary is standing, so I guess it’s pretty obvious.   Gary introduced himself and I introduced my family to him. Gary is very nervous and it shows, hence mom asked me to told Gary to relax. As we are talking in Chinese, some of the waitress went over to chat with us a bit. The dinner goes pretty well, there are some conversation between Gary and my parents. However, most of the time, we talked about different things in Cantonese. Mom always wonder if Gary get bore, but Gary said he is not. The only thing that we are disappointed with is food, they are not good and mom said we probably won’t come back to this restaurant again.

This morning I was looking over the conference program for the 2009 ILF Annual Conference, the committee is looking for interesting program and see if the presenter will be interested in presenting at our 2010 ILF District 1 Annual Conference. I found one related to tagging and online catalog, which the committee also interested in, hence I sent off an email to the presenter and see if he will be interested. This afternoon, I got a phone call. Obviously, this person doesn’t know me, as she has difficult in pronouncing my name. Anyway, she said she attended a conference program I presented back in April and she asked if I will be interested in presenting it at the conference that she is organizing. Woo, this is the first time I’m invited to talk in a conference that I didn’t submit a proposal to. It is kind of interesting that I asked a presenter to present a program for us in the morning, and then I was asked by someone whether I will be interested in presenting for a program in the afternoon.

Today is first day of class and enrollment for this Fall equate to 106.99% when compares with Fall 2008. While I didn’t think there will be any impact on me, I'm wrong. When I got there today, all of the parking lots are full, no parking spot was available. Luckily, I found one after circling for a few minutes. Gary said parking situation at the beginning of the semester is always terrible, I doubt when he mentioned that to me a day or two ago. But now, I need to admit that’s true. Guess I didn’t recognize that in the past as I’m always stay inside the library, so I don’t know what’s happening around the campus!

I logged into MSN after I done with dinner. Right after I logged in, I got a message from Lucky. Just when I wondering whether Lucky have any news for his baby, he said he got a sad news for me. Lucky told me that Feng passed away.  When I first heard about it, I can’t believe it. Feng is so young and doesn’t he just graduated from his PhD? Lucky said he talked to him 3 days ago, but now he passed away. I guess Lucky is as surprised by the news as I am, so he didn’t know how to response to it. The only thing he knows is Feng died due to health problem suddenly. Health problem? As I remembered, Feng played soccer and exercise a lot. I called up two friends after that and let them know about the sad news. Feng is a very nice person, we BBQ, we party, and he also helped me out too. I feel sad for losing Feng as my friend, but I will miss him. I hope he will rest in peace and may God bless his family and friends.

This afternoon is the first time I chair a virtual meeting for the ILF District 1 Conference Planning Committee. Everyone signed in ok and there is no technical issue. I ran through the agenda item by item. After discussion of each item, we voted on a decision if needed. The meeting went smoothly and it lasted for 1.5 hours. Unlike face-to-face meeting, I have more chance to voice out my opinion or suggestion. Also, I’m able to cut back unnecessary and out of topic discussion which usually waste time. Personally, I felt virtual meeting is more effective than face-to-face meeting. However, most of the committee members prefer in-person contact, so we will have in-person meeting next month.

South Haven is at the northwestern side of South Bend, it took 1 hour and 15 minutes to drive over there. The first impression it gave me is a small town. The Thirsty Perch is a nice restaurant and their oyster and fishes are great. The fishes are very well cook and it’s very tender. The sail boat tour is packed and everyone is excited about the tour. Before the tour started, the crew introduced the history of the sail boat. The boat is pretty stable until it gets into the lake, it’s quite bumpy as the wind is strong. A few times during the tour, the crew members asked the passenger to help pulling the ropes in order to release and fasten the sail. Except the bumpy moment, the sailing is nice. In addition to the tour sail boat, there are a lot different type of boats in the Michigan Maritime Museum. There is a beach at South Haven, the sand looks very fine and nice, but the quality of water is not as good. Due to the nice weather, there are a lot of people swimming and tanning at the beach. South Haven is great for vacation, it gives me a clam feeling and I don't want to leave when I need to depart.