To Roxie,

Baby, I know you are an outdoor kitty and you are born to explore. Or, maybe because you are such a cute cuddler that someone else has claimed you and kept you inside. Wherever you are, I hope you are having lots of fun, safe, and being loved. I love you, Roxie! And I miss you!

(Sound alert! Sorry about the loudness.)

Update: After six days, she returned home! That was after we had looked out of the window two dozen times on Thursday night and Erik spotted her. She came in, ate, ate, and then ate some more. I went to bed smiling knowing that she was sleeping right next to me.

Update 2: Next day (Friday), I worked from home. It's a nice day out. Little One and Mango begged to go outside to play. I opened the sliding door. They ran out excitedly. It took Roxie a while, but she walked out slowly after she buried her head in the food bowl for a long while. After about an hour, all three of them returned home, so I closed the door. All three of them are napping now. It's a peaceful world in this corner of the universe.

However, tonight, at almost midnight on a Friday night, I have the urge to write something. I need to get this off my chest so I can move on, and in the mean time, I want to make a pledge — I want to be a better person, like Erik.

I made a big mistake — I have been granted some stock options that were scheduled to expire on Feb 27, 2011. I knew the date. I procrastinated. Not because I wanted to time the market _- I don't follow the stock market. It's only because "well, I still have time and I'll get to it." I was going to exercise & sell today and even sent myself a reminder this morning, but work got busy and I forgot about it until late into the night. Then, I found out… the options expired on the last business day at market close. I missed it! My heart ached. It's like I just lit a match and burned a pile of bills worth of $11k+.  It's not much for a lot of people, but it's a lot for us, esp. during a time when we are doing everything we can to do a remodel on a budget, and our house needed the remodel.

I brought the bad news to Erik. I was full of guilt. I didn't expect him to scold me or anything — he's not that kind of person, but I was still amazed that he did not even frown. He gave me a big hug, smiled,  and said to me, "well, if this is this worst thing that has ever happened to you, you are doing pretty well."  I am still beating myself to death in my heart for the stupid mistake I made, but in the mean time, I feel enlightened in my realization that one man's capacity for forgiving others can really be boundless.

I knew if our roles had switched, it would have been different. I won't hide it – I may try to rationalize and convince myself that there is nothing we could do to change the situation, but I'm pretty sure my disappointment will still show, which will only make the other person feel worse. I'm so glad that it's not the other way around.  I have always been a critical person, more with myself, but also with the people around me. Today's incident taught me a big lesson. For all the mistakes I've criticized my loved one(s) for making that I thought were not forgivable, none of them were really unforgivable (esp. compared to my mistake).  I need to work on myself to have a bigger heart.

So. this. is. my. pledge.

A heavy weight just got lifted….

Thank you for reading.

More photos are in this album.

Related pages:

• We are Engaged
• We got married, twice
• Our 2006 Washington Wedding photos
• Our 2007 Yesemite Wedding
  • Our wedding invitation
  • Our thank you note
  • Photos

Plan #1: Drive up to Tahoe area, and do road riding of our own 5-pass Death Ride (involving Kingsbury Grade, Luther Pass, and Pacific Grade, etc.) as well as the Tahoe loop. I brought it up on Friday and vetoed it myself on Friday night because it occurred to me that the traffic would be bad and there would be too many cars on the roads. Later Erik admit that he was happy that I canceled that plan because he wasn't looking forward to the long drive after our road trip that wrapped up only one week before.

Plan #2: Charlie's Skeggs->HMB->Skeggs ride on Saturday. There would be many familiar faces on that group ride and a ride with Charlie is always guaranteed to be fun. But it didn't happen in the end only because I had a hard time opening my eyes when the alarm went off on Saturday morning. Then I thought I would just nap a little longer and we would try to catch up with the group on route. But when I finally woke up, it was already too late for that to happen. If we had done the ride, we would most likely have run into the group on their way back from HMB. That would have been awkward in my mind. So, that plan was killed. Good thing though because under my pressure, Erik examined his mountain bike (first time after our road trip) after we got up and found that his rear brake rotor was warped so bad that it was constantly rubbing. It would have been bad if we had gotten on the big ride. A swap of the rotor with my old bike fixed the problem. Now we are ready to ride!

We ended up going for a 56 mile road ride from the house in the afternoon (W. Alpine up, Page Mill down, Canada to Crestview, Canada back to OLH, and home). I had mentioned to Erik Crestview Drive, a steep climb that I had incorporated sometimes on my commute. On this ride, I got to show him the climb and what I had said before started to make sense to him. He was glad to experience it.

After the ride, I took him to a Korean restaurant in San Mateo I had discovered and liked. The food was good, but on a busy Saturday evening, located right next to an Asian supermarket, the restaurant was full of screaming kids — not really a good venue for an anniversary dinner.

To make up for the sub-par dining experience on Saturday, we went to Moss Beach Distillery for their Sunday Brunch. Our table was right by a window above a cliff over-looking the beach down below. After the nice brunch, we went down to the beach and Erik did some beach combing like a kid in the wonderland.

Plan #3: Now that Erik's bike had been fixed, we were going to do the Skeggs->HMB->Skeggs ride on own our on Monday, the Labor Day. But again, despite having gone to bed fairly early, I had a hard time waking up again. (Man! The work week after our trip really played its toll on me!) So, we "went with flow" and slept in. Also not wanting to deal with rangers with radar guns for speed control on the trails, we elected to pay Soquel Demo a visit. It turned out to be a very fun ride — we hit every main trail there. I'm posting the route below just because I liked the shape.

GPS track also available on MTBGuru and Plus3Network.

P.S. Last night, I proclaimed to Erik before he drifted into sleep that we had been married for four years. Here is his response, "Wow, four years! I didn't even know that was possible!… Oh, I didn't mean it in THAT way…" I chuckled and fell asleep. From what I gathered, he lay awake for quite a while after that. Maybe he had come up with some profound discovery in those awaken hours?

Erik got a kidney stone… two weeks before the trip. The ER doctor told him after a CT scan that it was a 4mm stone, and there was a 95% chance that it would pass on its own within the next 24 hours. So, we both stayed at home the next day. I felt like a husband waiting for the wife to go in labor. There were cramps and spasms, but they all turned out to be false alarms, and we didn't get our Rocky by the end of the 24 hour period. Next day (we went back to work)? No sign. Finally, we went online to consult with Dr. Google and learned that it may take people anywhere from a couple of days to three weeks for a kidney stone to pass. Three weeks would mean no road trip for us then… But after nine days since the first onset, Rocky came out. From what I heard, the process was actually fairly quick and unexpected. Erik only got one glance and Rocky disappeared down the pipe. Still left with some discomfort, he was not cleared until the Friday right before our vacation by the urologist to go ahead with road trip.

While he battled with the stone, I battled with my computer. I have been working on a project at my new job. It was supposed to be wrapped up earlier, but just as how anything in life usually goes, there were some last minute changes that had to be made. I worked long hours everyday in the week. On Friday, I went home at 10pm and worked until 2am. If you have ever been a developer, you'll understand — so, this is not working, but let me try just one more thing and it might just solve it, and of course, it never does! Anyway, when finally it became clear that my brain had been completely fried so I should really just go to bed, I realized that I left my iPhone sitting right on my desk at work! So somewhere around 3am, Erik drove me to work and back (40 minutes each way). Now you may ask, why was he up then? Well, I had always asked the same question, "why can't you just go to bed without me?" (I'm a night owl, and he is not.) He always said he could not fall asleep without me. "Yeah right! Then how did you ever sleep before you met me?" "I never slept!!!" After that, I stopped asking. Oh, on that note, I must compliment him — despite being dead tired, when he heard that I had to go back to work at 2am in order to get my phone (I couldn't wait until the next morning because I would be expecting an appraiser for our mortgate refi), he simply said, "well, life happens," and insisted on driving me.

It took me only two more days to got all the kinks out for my project, due to our extremely complex product, convoluted process, discrete build system, incorrect documentations, inaccurate debugging information, and…last as well as the least, my own stupidity. In other words, I worked all the way through Sunday afternoon and got everything under control… But we were supposed to get on the road on Saturday! Oh well, both Erik and I agreed that we would not stress about it. We'll get out when we are ready to get out.

Not that Erik was just sitting on his hands doing nothing. He'd got a problem of his own. Ever since he discovered that his bottom bracket bearings as well as shock bearings were shot after our Coe 10k ride in June, he had wanted or needed to replace them. Always busy with work, he did all these replacements slowly. His bike has been stripped down to bear frame and sitting there for quite a while. Finally on Friday evening, he started putting the pieces together. While I worked, he ran errands on Saturday. And in the evening, he found that he couldn't get the shifting right no matter what (like after hours of trying). On Sunday, he took it to two shops and neither could figure it out. I couldn't tell who was more frustrated (me with my project or he with the bike) by that point. I think we both have said something to the effect of "I don't want to go on the trip any more; I just want to spend the next two weeks at home to figure out the problem." Finally, while surfing bike pictures, it suddenly dawned on him that he put his rockers upside down. Doh! After that correciont, it was piece of cake for the shifting to work flawlessly.

Okay, now that we both have dealt with our own issues, maybe the trip will happen after all! On Sunday night, I went through the big bag full of books on CDs and suddenly got very excited about the road trip — wow, we'll get to listen to so many great books!

Now on Monday afternoon, Erik is driving on Hwy 5 somewhere north of Sacramento, and I am typing away on my newly purchased netbook. He asked me, "what are you typing?" I told him, "my trip report." "What??? Our trip has not even started yet!!!" "Yeah, I know, my report is only three pages long so far."

P.S. I typed this report on the road and am publishing it at the Black Sheep Pub in Ashland.

听妈咪说爹地这个周末去和老朋友攀岩，所以这两个晚上是我们女人的世界，我们真高兴呀。我们其实很喜欢和爹地妈咪一起温馨，可是经常我和他们一起跳上床后 过一会，爹地就会突然坐起来冲着我瞪眼，吓得我一个激灵就跑走了。其实不就是我给自己舔毛舔得稀里哗啦的吗，有什麽大不了的，爹地说他受不了那个声音。呵 呵，还好妈咪吃饭不会吧唧吧唧的，否则爹地连饭都没法吃了。所以现在我习惯了，想上床就等他们睡着了后悄悄地跳到妈咪那边去。然后爹地醒了，我再跑走。芒 果嘛，她是我的小跟屁虫。可是妈咪经常很遗憾地说她更喜欢有我陪伴着入睡。其实爹地蛮体贴的，他去上班很早，所以他起来后出门前经常会找到我，把我抱到妈 咪身旁，呼噜呼噜我的毛，让我跟还在睡觉的妈咪作伴。其实他不知道，即使他不抱我来，多半我在他走后会自己去找妈咪的。

Mommy told us that daddy went rocking climb with his buddy, so this weekend belong to us. I'm so glad to hear that. I love daddy, but he doesn't like it when I groom myself. He says I make slurping noises that drive him nuts. So, if I come to bed, I wait until they have fallen asleep and then I jump on mommy's side. But now that he is gone, mommy happily brings her laptop into bed and watch a movie while we watch it with her from the other side of the screen.
这不,爹地不在家，妈咪乐颠乐颠地把电脑抱到床上，看个了电影，我们就看电影的背面。

We all went to sleep late after the movie, so we all sleep in. But mommy wakes up first, so she picks up her iPhone and starts to take pictures.

昨晚电影看晚了，我们要睡个懒觉补回来。早晨妈咪醒来，就捡起枕边的手机给我们左照右照。

Once I wake up, I love to cuddle up with mommy in her arm. I like to press my back against her arm, but I also like to hug her arm. Basically, I love her very tanned arm dearly. Mm…

我醒了，就特别喜欢在妈咪的臂弯里面拱，我喜欢紧紧地抵着她的胳膊，也喜欢紧紧地抱着她的胳膊，总之就是我爱死那个晒得黑黑的胳膊了！

Only two days, mommy has already complained. Because we are so cute and adorable, she has a very hard time getting out of bed. Everyday, she spends more than half a day in bed with us and cannot get anything done. Well, being cute and adorable, we can't really help it, can we?!

才两个晚上，妈咪就抱怨了，说我们这样可爱地伴着她，搞得她都没有办法起床了，一大半天就浩在床里了。呵呵，难道我们可爱也有错吗？？？大家给我们评评理！

The socket and bit set on the right is for the Park Took Torque Wrench I recently purchased.

Now, I'd better go take my bike apart and give a thorough wipe down.

(Look, what Erik Got me for birthday last year!)

P.S. I just realized that this probably looked more like a Father's Day present than a birthday present to a wife.  Hahaha…

P.P.S. Erik asked me when I was fumbling with my new toys, "Can I have my toolset back now?" Hahaha…

笨嘴拙舌，直接上片吧。

有猫猫爱的日子真幸福呀。


I just had an epiphany: A picture is worth a thousand words. So forget about a longer report. Here are the pictures. But first, thanks F4 for hosting the delicious hotpot dinner and the one of a kind birthday gift! Thanks munge for coming out to share a couple of drinks with Mr. Mud. And thanks all who were thinking of him.

Oh, the funny thing was on our way home from the bar after Mr. Mud had a couple of "Dirty Old Man" drinks, the audiobook we were listening to, a World War II memoir, had this in a dialogue: "I'm not a dirty old man; I'm a sexy senior citizen."

Mr. Mud is not old yet. See how flexible he is in these poses?

He was not doing yoga though. He was just admiring the beauty of these early spring flowers at Pinnacles.

Mr. Mud would not have wanted to be anywhere else.

Wish you all could have been here.

The next day, Erik also had an epiphany on our short ride, "Alcohol is not a performance enhancing drug."