Tom's Journey

天开始黑的早了，下班的时候街上早已经是华灯高照了； 各大报纸又在报道布什总统在白宫宽容赦免一只火鸡； 第二天，照例是成百万只火鸡进了美国人的肚子； 在第二天，照例是很多人凌晨就到各大商店排队，等着抢购便宜货； 街上照例是开始出现了救世军募款的场景； 各大办公楼照例是放上了圣诞节的装饰；

是啊，照例感恩节又到了……

BTW, this is an excerpt from White House's
Nov. 29th
Press Briefing by Scott McClellan
The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room"

Q I have a personal comment first, before my question. It was a great message, Thanksgiving message from the President. Also, pardoning one turkey in the White House. But I hope next year thanking the, whatever, God, or (inaudible) or the turkey, I hope that next year he will pardon all the turkeys for one day, at least nobody will eat turkey.

My question is that President Musharraf is again coming to Washington --

MR. McCLELLAN: It was a stand-in, so he really pardoned two. (Laughter.)

Q But I hope next year all will be pardoned for a day.

Q But he did eat turkey, right?

MR. McCLELLAN: What's your question?

I have been carpooling for at least 5 years now, this morning, I was on the carpool lane, and talking with the driver about a law that has been passed, which will allow certain hybrid cars to use carpool lane even with one driver.

I thought that's a stupid policy to 'encourage' more people to buy energy saving automobiles.
1, Cars like Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid are such a hot cake, their buyers usually waited for 4-5 months to get their car, let along sometimes paying $2000-3000 premium for it.
2, Hybrid cars will turn off their engines when they stop, some of them, such as Prius will use battery power together with gasoline engine at low speed, hence the emmissions are generally lower, why do we let cars with very low emmission at low speed use carpool lane, and make more Gas-guzzling SUVs emit more CO2.

I don't think there should be any special treatment to such a car, and I doubt whether this policy will last long.


I have to note that on Feb 11, 2005, about 2.5 months after I emailed Diane Feinstein on the issue of Hybrid car using Carpool lane, she actually replied. Here is an excerpt of her email :

I believe that allowing hybrids into HOV lanes is a low-cost and
quick way to help promote the use of hybrids. With more fuel-efficient
vehicles on the road, I believe that we can improve our air quality and
diminish our dependence on foreign oil. In the coming weeks, I plan to
introduce a bill in the Senate that would allow hybrid vehicles access to
HOV lanes.

I understand the reservations you have about allowing hybrids to
use HOV lanes. I have heard from several constituents who are worried
about hybrid vehicles causing traffic and congestion in HOV lanes. For
this reason, I have introduced a provision in the bill that allows states to
implement their own hybrid access rules. In California for instance, the
number of hybrids allowed to access HOV lanes is limited to 75,000.
Please know that I will keep your concerns in mind as both California
and the Nation continue to address the issue of hybrids on our highways.

Just visited sorryeverybody.com and apologiesaccepted.com, I think they are some amazing communication events on such a massive scale, from the globe.

I just wish I would be able to say "I am sorry, World!", after almost 11 years in this country, paying so much taxes, and seeing my tax money going the killings.

Oh, well, that time is near, tick, tick, tick......

Yesterday, our immediate neighbor Mrs Z came home at about 4pm, she found out that their door was open, and it was a mess inside of the house. Yes, they had a break-in, and lost some property, such as a laptop, digital camera, video camera, etc. While I was talking to them, I looked at their immediate neighbor Y, whose owners usually don't come back until late in the night, so I called them on their cell phone, and told them about Z's misfortune, they said "hope we are OK, we had alarm".

When Y came back, they found that their house was attempted to be broken in as well, the screens were broken, and two sliding windows were tempered, one of the two windows were cracked. The whole evening, the little neighbor of about 5 houses were talking to each other, checking, disbelieving.

What we found out was:
1, Y's home had alarm, and it actually went off, the police came 2 minutes after it went off, but only checked front of the house, and didn't find anything abnormal, and left a note of 'false alarm', and went back.
2, the whole neighborhood was dark, without appropriete lighting in the evening, even though this incident happened during the day time
3, it was coincident that we were just talking about forming a neighborhood watch last week, not that it will for sure prevent this from happening.
4, don't know if the burglar was professional or not, the detective didn't get any finger prints, but the burglar didn't even see the alarm company's sign on the windows, and according to the police, professional thieves will have a truck at your house, and rob everything.

最近好像有点栽，先是买了快一年的DELL Laptop连续无缘无故的宕机，周五终于起都起不来了；接着周六洗衣机又坏了，只进水不脱水。

连忙给DELL和Fisher & Paykel打电话，做了DELL建议的检测程序后，发回错误码，告诉我说硬盘坏了，明天给我寄个新的来，我说我的那些重要文件呢？他说那对不起了，你只能到外面找专门的公司去试，费用自付。 :-(

洗衣机这边儿也不省心，刚出保修期没几个月，因为厂商是新西兰的，附近维修的公司不多，最便宜的一家也要$69才上门看，修更是要另外加钱。怎么办？也得修啊，衣服堆在那儿都要臭了！

星期二，洗衣机的维修公司上门了，连开盖儿都没开，拿了个电脑按了一堆数，说有一个零件坏了，要去定了来换，好了，等吧！

同一天，DELL的硬盘也到了，看着小东西就挺高兴，也没有说明书，好在咱是玩儿这个的，三下五除二，就把新的硬盘给装上了，一按启动钮，俺这才傻了，是一块“裸盘”，空的！花了我两三个小时才把“温斗死”装上，把网调好，把账号设好。

想了想，觉得Fisher & Paykel还真不算差，如果当初买了DELL牌儿的洗衣机的话，现在还不得让咱自己装洗衣机！

As I paid close attention to this close election race, while I was having my dinner, I was so addicted to media between TV/Internet, 77-66 blue, 156-112 red, 176-112 red, 193-112 red, 203-112 red, 203-133 red, 203-144 red, 197-144 red, 207-199, whatever. It's more like a NBA game broadcasting.

All of sudden, I just realized that I had probably eaten twice as much as I usually eat for dinner, and was still eating! Now I am feeling what I'd call 'my first PES', that's pre-Election Syndrome.

XD,

Here is a recent recipe that we tested for a long time, and it worked
perfectly now, better than the one provided with the manual (the ones
with * were changed)

* 1 1/2 cups water
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
* 1 cup quick-cook oats
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
* 3 1/8 cups bread flour
* 3 tablespoons of wheat bran
2 tablespoons dry milk
* 2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast.

Process remains the same, we add about 6-8 dried appricots and some
dried cranberry, sometimes I add some raisens, sometimes some
pinenuts, and the bread is much fluffy and delicious.

good luck,

-L