It is that positive culture in the American work place that I appreciate
the most.  But, it is also very tiring.  If you want to make a career
here in US, no matter how many hours you put in your works,
you have to work hard, and effective.  Sometime, with one 30
minutes meeting, one might completely drain his energy that he 
needs for the whole day. With such intense working environment,
appropriate entertainments is important to make sure one can survive 
the week, without burning out at mid-week.

To think about it, it would be interesting to talk about a working day
before getting to that two hours I want to talk about. My general
managers always like to emphasize the non-bullshit culture in our
working environment. It is interesting that how each level of
managements work. At the GM level, everything is either "YES" or
"NO"; at the director level, there could be some room of the"BUT's";
at 2nd level managements, a report with good summarized details is
important; as to the first line management, everything must be
thorough. If one level of the command chain breaks, it is going to
be a disaster. This is also why respect each others becomes so
importantin the US cooperate culture. In the pass fews months, I
have been under lots of stress, since there are these couple new
products that we are about to introduce to the market, plus the whole
operation of the newly acquired company. I have been involved in
dealing with quite a few crucial projects that will determine the future
of more then 100 people's jobs.

Everyday, I start with a conference call with Europe around mid-
night my time, to make sure all the progress in California is reported
to them, and set the right daily plan. Then, I might need to write up
some plan to summarize the plan, and set to the corresponding
managers. The second thing I do is to read my newspapers before I
go to bed. Three times in a week, I have these early morning
conference calls with European R&D, customers, or customers from
east coast, central. My day can start around 5am, and spend the
next 3-5 hours on the phone, before I can leave for my office.

Then it is a routine day for me most of my office hours, talking
to my engineers, dealing with account managers, reporting to my
bosses, discussing the division strategy, plan for strategic accounts,
and if I am lucky, I might work a little bit on my blog when I find those
5-10 minutes break. I might sneak out to have a good one hour
lunch. In the afternoon, Japan starts to work 3:00pm our time, when
my Japanese business development manager gets on his commute
train. Then all the possible phone calls from our Asian customers, are
expected to come in. By the end of the day, maybe some engineers,
managers or directors will come to my office to chit-chat a little bit,
about their progress, complains, frustrations, etc.

Most of the time, I am able to make it home for dinner, but not for
the past couple months. Usually, I would take care of my dinner in
the car, and get ready to play with kids a littel bit, or read them a
story. However, with so much less time with the kids, they would
stay late tojust play with me. It was getting to a point that my lost
all my personaltime. There is no watching "Sports Center", there is
no listening to"Favorite Albumn", there is no taking a good desert, for
a long while.

I could do it for a good extended period of time, but more
than two months with little entertainment during the week day is
making my week really long. Yesterday, I stayed in the office extra
long, just to take my pace on dealing with all the details. When
I finished, it was around 9:20pm. I decided to take a quick run to
McDonald, and take my time with the California Cobb Salad. And take
a little walk to finish my orange juice before I got in my car.

It dried up a little bit when I reached the freeway. I turned off my 
radio, just drived. The freeway dried out pretty well, the traffice
was light, and it was a good drive home. Getting out of Silicon Valley,
the famous rolling hills were in my sight, the scene was so tranquil.
And I decided to just let me mind go free. This is the night I want to
belong to myself.

Getting home, surprisingly, Tina and the kids were sleeping already. I
put on my sneakers, and got on my treadmill. With my iPod Mini on
the panel, playing the great music of Survivors, "Burning Heart",
"Eyes of Tigers", "The search is over"..., I was on my top speed,
running at the speed of 8 mile/hr. My body was drenched in sweat. My
heartbeat started from 80 and now reached to 190. I felt so good for
that two minutes of high speed running. Then, I paced down.
The "warm-down" period was usually my favorite part. The sweat
started to come out from every part of my body. Sweat dropped down
from my forehead, my arms were wet, my chest was wet, the sweat
was tickling my back, and travled down to my ...., you don't want to
know.

Now the music was "On top of the worlds" from Carpenter's 1969
single. The cover of the Feb. 13 issue of the TimeMagazine was
"IS AMERICAN FLUNKING SCIENCE?" I flipped it openand my legs,
moving by their own. "Our superiority was once the envy of  the
world. But we are slacking off just as other countries aregetting
stronger. What's the formula for a comeback?" By Michael D.
Lemonick. You know, every thing they put on Time or Business
Week, is old stuff, for people being involved in it. It is the update of
when experts have been working on. I have to say that I admire
these journalists the most when I read such articles.

Six years ago, NSF, the National Science Foundation, initiated a
program to address the graduate degree research for nature science,
one of my customers was invited to join. They have set up a good
infrastructure to address the problem. When I read this article, I was
so impressed. The way this article was written was just perfect, it  
made people understood. It is how journalists, from magazines like
Time, deliver the message from experts to the general public. There
is no showing off on how good the writters are but just tell the facts.
They are not trying to teach readers something, but just to tell.
In the articles, there were stories about some people decided to leave
American to Singapore, to UK, in order to continue the pursue of
scientific research.

This article also mentioned how the defense budget was cut after the
end of cold war, and it also hurt the science research. There was need
to tell me that since I was one that experience the whole period,.
However, now, I am in the private sector. And I found out there are
lots of advantages to continue our works while continnue conducting
the business. For some young generation, the story was different.
"I associated engineering with long, boring assignments. No one
showed me why it was cool." This was highlighted in red, from
Ybarra, a engineer-turn-writer. SOME young generations are losing
interests in technology, but that is lots of M. I. T. graduates, who
have not been looking for career in engineer to begin with. In the
past coupld years, I am getting greattalents from schools that I
enjoy working with a lot. "We don't have the shadow of Sputnik
or the cold war for inspiration anymore". Yes, this is our
observations. There is no threat from our ENEMY any more. There is .
no urgencyto prove US is better than other countries. At least, the
threatis much lesser now.

Along with it was another article titled "The Political Science
Test" It was an article talk about the political influence in science.
Bush said science would guide his decision, but those in the lad see
ideology intruding on their work. This is actually even more alarming
for the US science research. "Good science cannot long persist in an
atmosphere of intimidation." Yes, in the View Point article by Charles
Krauthammer, there was change of tone. The title was "Don't believe
the Hype. We're still No. 1. What the doomsayers don't say:
America is a marvel of creativity. Yes, innovation and creativity are
two different things. It is the culture that keeps US competitive in
the world, not the pure technology. It is normal for people to leave
US to pursue their dream, because this is a nature transition, for
certain people. My treadmill stopped, just when I flipped to the next
article, "The scars of war". Another topics worth written, but not
today. Not even for me to read so late at night.

I moved to my family room, turned on my TV, setting my floor mat for
stretching. Oh, wasn't my body stiff! With 45 minutes of good running,
I could still feel the tension of my back, my thighs, almost every part
of my body. I turn on my home theater system, thanks for the
great technology, and now I was able to receive radio station at this
remote hills. It was not from the air, it was from the digital cable. I
tuned to 972, my favorite lite-rock station, KOIT. It was Eagles'
"I can't tell you why". My mind drifted back to late last year when
Tina bought me the ticket to Eagles California Tour Concert. All those
good feelings was coming back to me. Man, "Am I lucky?", with all
the entertainments I could do, some exceptional long working day
were just part of it, as long as it is not turning into regular base.
I continue to stretch my muscles, from neck to ankles. There were
Shania Twain, Rod Steward, Tina Tuner, Better Midler singing, and
even at thet end I got the great Beetles to sing the "Yesterday" in my
home when I lay flat on my back.

I grabbed my newspapers and went to the little bath tub in my den
, a trade-off I had to deal with when three of them were sleeping in
our mater bedroom. Ok, without the sight of Mount Diablo, I could
still enjoy my newspapers. Interesting, the first page of New York
Times showed two pictures, the best supporting actor, Cloony, and
best supporting actree, Weisz. Not the best director, and not the
best picutures? This is interesting part of how American media handle
business. Actually, to me, I felt it might be right, or at least reasonable
to do so, since women, likeTina, are attracted to George, and guys,
like me, feel the same to Rachel. If I walked on the street and saw
the newspaper, I would buy it, maybe not so if they were Matt Dillon
and Ang Lee. After read through the Oscar stories, I picked up the
Monday Sports section. It featured the story of Cuban Baseball
team for WBC. "Passion in Work and at Play" Cubans talk only of
their love for baseball and country. It was a really touching story.
It reminded me the hard working and tough environment of the
earlier Taiwan. How people played just for their believes.

But, what cracked me up was this. "So How Many Knicks Does It
Take toScrew in a Light Bulb." Knicks have been a joke this year,
with the highest payroll and lowest winning percentage. Isiah Thomas
better figures out what he is trying to do. The article features a good
line from "Saturday Night Live" "Epiphanny Prince, a 17-year-old
New York girl, broke the city's high school girls basketball scoring
record when she scored 113 points in a game this week, leading her
team toa 137-32 victory. To be fair, they were playing the Knicks."

I glanced at the right side for the baseball news. "The Hall of
Fame outfielder Kirby Puckett has a stroke". Oh, poor Puck, hope
he could recover. I crossed my figures and prayed for him. I got out
of my bath, went back to the family, turned on the Sports Center.
The breaking news was "Mr. Puckett died, at the age of 45". Oh,
it was such an abrupt ending for this late greatplayer. His inspiring
style was what led his Minnesota Twins to the World Championship in
1987 and 1991. Even I was rooting for the other sides, in both
series, but his style was impressive. Puckett was forced to retired
when a pitch sailed wild to affect his vision after the incident. Puckett
had couple violent records against his wife and another women. I did
not follow those news. What he left me was his greatcare for little kids
when he sat in the broadcast booth in the little league game. And his
pumping fists after his 11th-inning homers in the game 6 of 1991
WorldSeries against the Atlanta Braves. My grief goes to him, his family,
his friends and all the fans, and everyone who cares for him. To me,
Puck is a good person, maybe not perfect. At least I know there will not
be another Puck in the world.

Yes, that two hours last night, I surrendered all my thoughts, and just
let it go. I feel great now. Yes, that two hours of doing my own things
were exactly what I needed. It is a brand new day today, starting
from the great view to Mount Diablo on my way to the office.