Second Summer Movie - Pirates of Caribbean 3

Well, after seeing the "Spiderman 3" back to May, I haven't really seen any big summer movie until this past weekend. Since the ending of last "Pirates" movie is not really an ending but the introduction to this "At World's End" sequal, I just had to find out what the real "end" is (it turns out that they still leave an ending that can spin off more sequal, surprise, surprise).
Since I am really not a fan of crowded movie theater, I waited for almost a month until this past weekend to see this movie. Surprising, it was still 50% full in the theater.
The movie is a little bit too long and the storyline is too messy. The special effects are alright but nothing special compared to the previous two. Without any big sea monster in this one, it just falls flat with only the one big water swirl pool and sea war scenes. I suppose it does provide the ending of all the main characters. Somehow, it is just not as exciting as the previous ones. Aw, well, it is just a summer no-brain movie. Just hope that the latest "Die Hard" movie will better.

Not Doing Good In Job Hunting

This is a late post. I made a lemon cake with grape jelly filling and lemon frosting for the family in Father's Day. It was decorated with the "Lilly of Valley". It was my first try to decorate the cake with that flower style. It worked ok and everybody loved the cake.

Finally, I decided to reject the offer from NYC on this past Monday due to the reason described in last post. All my ex-cowokers and friedns think I made a big mistake. But I disagree with them and hope that I am right. Today I just got a phone call from the old big "G" company to tell me that they could not offer the job previously they have vebally offered me due to the budget reason.

I am not sure what I am supposed to do now. The best thing I can do now is to move forward to look for other possibility in the local area. Wish me luck.

Job or Love?

This job hunting is really killing me. I know that this NYC offer will be good for my career in the next 10 years even though with all the finance disadvantage it presents now. And the work contents and co-workers are all great.

However, I met "the one" in my life here. We build a life together and so much more. But that also means that I will have to accept a job that I do not like and does not have too much career potential for me in the future. I guess this is the typical problem lots of career women encounter but I just never thought about a guy like me would ever encounter something like this.

I always think myself as very goal oriented. And that's the reason why I traveled half the world to US to get my difficult Ph.D. degree in Engineering field and got myself a job in the biggest medical equipment company in the world. But somehow, I think I change in the way of pursuing the material world success. As I cross the 30-year old age line, I found myself wanting to settle down with someone. So here I am, facing another turing point of the life/career change, I am really struggling between picking a job I love or a person I love. I wish a great answer to satisfy both conditions will appear soon. But I think that I know the answer all the way: there is always another job, but there might not be another person I love and truly love me back. All I need to do now is to convince myself completely that's really the correct answer that I will not regret..

Might have to abandon the job offer from NYC area

Finally, a good job offer came in yesterday. It is from a big medical equipment company. Their main product is this system that mix and analyze the blood and body fluid samples with different agents for the lab test.

The working enviroment is great there and most of the people I interviewed with last week were all nice decent people. And it looks that they are not slaved as badly as my previous company (another medical corporate starting with a big "G"). The office area is nice and the living enviroment is not bad there either. However, it is very expensive for the real eastate since it is only 30 minutes outside NYC.

I went through the relocation package quickly last night. Unfortunately, it is not a good package. The company contracted a real estate company to sell the house for the new employee. However, if the house cannot be sold in 30 days (which is no way in the bad house market like now), the company can decide the lower price for selling the house. Since I am not a rich guy who can afford some real estate company to cut $20,000 to $30,000 of my house price just for the sake of selling the house, I am not sure if I will take the job. Besides, the house price is triple in NYC compared to Milwaukee here. The 2-bedroom and 2-bath condo which costs about $260,000 in Milwaukee will be $750,000 in NYC. That means that I will have to move from a 2-bedroom to a covered parking lot in NYC if I can sell my condo and move to the NYC. In addition, I only got $20,000 more in pay from that company. It just cannot cover the living expense. And the double moratge is just not possible for me.

It looks like I just have to abandon that offer and look for something else. Sigh.

Hope that the other job from big old "G" company will come soon. The HR manager is still in Asia this week so hope that he will speed up the process next week when he is back. This is really the most annoyed summer since I move to here.

Finish most of the basic settings

Finally, I finished setting most of the basic stuffs such as the fonts, colors and links, for this blog. The title pictures was taken in my Alaska trip back to the summer of 2005. Cannot believe how fast the time passed. Also, a picture of the art museum here.

The weather is nice again here today. Summer is here and all the flowers are starting to bloom. Went for a 3-mile run the first in this past month since the change at work. Hope something new will happen soon.

First post

Hello,



Guess this is the beginning of my blog trials here. We will see how long I can last here.