Are you sure you won't fall in love?

So here's a challenge for you and a friend....

You find someone that you know and try to ask each other these questions... one by one. Let me suggest that you should find someone you don't mind falling in love with.

Let us know how you fare against these questions.

Set I

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?
3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?
4. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?
5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?
7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.
9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.
12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

So there they were... The first set of questions. Pat yourself and your friend on your back. Go get a couple of drinks.

Where you are ready, let's start the second set.

Set II

13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?
14. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
16. What do you value most in a friendship?
17. What is your most treasured memory?
18. What is your most terrible memory?
19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?
20. What does friendship mean to you?
21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?
22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.
23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?
24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

How are you guys doing so far? Still doing well, I hope. We almost done. 11 more questions to go. If you hungry, get some snack and relax.

Set III

25. Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling ... “
26. Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share ... “
27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.
28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.
29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.
30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?
31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.
32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?
34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?
35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?
36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

Wow... we are done!!!!! How are you two doing? I hope this has been fun for you and your partner. Let us know how you are doing after all these.

Hope to hear from you soon....

Love... ReiA

Marriage, Money and Children as sources for your happiness

I came across this article about a presentation that Prof. Daniel Gilbert - Harvard professor of psychology.

In the article, Prof. Gilbert made references to his late mother's receipe for happiness - marriage, money, and children. He said that married people "...Married people are happier than unmarried people. They are healthier, live longer, have more sex,...". In addition to just being married, the quality of marriage is another factor, and is closely related to the level of happiness. This actually is no surprise, right? If you are not very miserable in your marriage, how could you be happy.

The next factor is the money factor. He said that money has diminishing return on the level of happiness. The sweet spot is about 50,000-70,000 USD. Thinking about this a little more, I can see that, like other things, the diniminshing return of money that one has does make sense.

"children" were the next thing that he discussed. Surprisingly, children were not the source of happiness. In contary, couples see reduction in their happiness when they started having children. According to Prof. Gilbert, “The only symptom of empty nest syndrome, is nonstop smiling.” If I understand the article, the affects of children to a couples is not the happiness that the children brought to them, but rather magic moments that they brought about. I guess we will have to wait until we actually have our own children.

Don't forget to check-out Prof. Gilbert's best seller Stumbling on Happiness, I am sure will get a copy to read. Hope they do have them at the library.

Working with Mininet

Introduction

A new thing that I learn today is mininet. Mininet is a set of software tools that I can use to simulate computer networks. The tools has build-in topology that that can get a non-sophisticate user like me to get my feet wet within a short time. This beats running into my lab and connecting cables to get my topology.

Mininet has extensive set of document and VM appliances that you can download and start right away. The VM image that I downloaded is based on Ubuntu 12.04. There are a lot of resources that you can use to learn about Ubuntu, VM, and virtualization on the web. I'll skip over these discussion for now, but may come back and talk about it later.

List of commands for Daily use

Mininet is known on the Ubuntu VM appliance as "mn" - its abbreviation *giggle*. Since mininet needs access to resources on the appliance, you will have to run "mn" at an elevated permission. On a Unix system such as Ubuntu you prefix mininet's command with sudo. This is how you start "mininet" once you get into the mininet appliance.
mininet@mininet-vm:~$ sudo mn
Mininet responses with the following output. It creates the default simple network topology.
*** Creating network
*** Adding controller
*** Adding hosts:
h1 h2
*** Adding switches:
s1
*** Adding links:
(h1, s1) (h2, s1)
*** Configuring hosts
h1 h2
*** Starting controller
*** Starting 1 switches
s1
*** Starting CLI:
mininet>
In this topology, we have 2 hosts and one switch. These hosts are denoted by h1 and h2. s1 represents the switch in this topology. "Links" are connections between a host and a switch. The link is always a point-to-point - meaning that the link connects between a pair only. The end-point of a link can be either a host, or a switch. These links in this topology shows as:
(h1, s1) (h2, s1)

There are several ways to review your network topology. The one that I use most is net. Here's the example of the output of the command:
mininet> net
c0
s1 lo: s1-eth1:h1-eth0 s1-eth2:h2-eth0
h1 h1-eth0:s1-eth1
h2 h2-eth0:s1-eth2
mininet>

Next time, we will go over other aspect of running the simple topology.

Taking care of Black Car

It looks like I may be getting a "black car"... Thanks MOM.... I love you.

Here's is a tip I found from www.meguiaronline.com - a user "ghaines" posted this.

Here's is the link to the post

His car looks gorgeous... I'm wondering if it will worth it.  It sounds like a lot of work.

Sorry for copy and re-post here.  I'll add my own version later on.

Washing & Caring Tips for Black Paint

I'm just a weekend warrior that has used this forum over the years to "perfect" my game-plan and to get me out of tough spots on my black Acura MDX & black Toyota Sequoia. The one thing that I feel as though I have perfected is the art of caring for black paint. As anyone knows that has a black car/truck/suv, it has a life of it's own and it's never perfect. Here are a couple of tips/tricks Ive picked up over the years as I've cared for my temperamental black paint:

Washing Technique:

The double bucket w/ Grit Guards technique is a must! I even have a 3rd bucket w/ Grit Guard that I use for wheels, running boards & wheel-wells to keep grit away from my dedicated wash buckets. I have dedicated MF sponge and MF handled brush for the wheels that don't ever touch the paint or my dedicated wash buckets. I do the wheels first. Once they're done I move on to the paint. I always wash in the shade with a cool paint surface. I start high on the horizontal surfaces and work down the the vertical sections (i.e. fenders). I Keep light pressure on the MEG MF Wash Mitt. I always do two passes on each section flipping the mitt over to the clean side after each pass. I also turn the nylon cuff inside the mitt so it never makes contact with the paint. Once each section is done, I rigorously rub the mitt agains the Girt Guard in the clean/fresh water on both sides, ring-out and then repeat in the soapy water. I never wash in a circular pattern, rather, I always use back and forth strokes. I really try to keep the pressure on the mitt to minimum. The 2nd pass gets anything you missed...

Drying techniques:

I use my gas powered leaf blower to blow off most of the standing water. It quickly gets rid of 80% of the water. It's also makes quick work of tires, rims , mirrors & running boards. One very important tip... USE EAR PLUGS! When you lift the blower above your shoulders you're putting the engine/exhaust right at ear level. I try to minimize the use of drying towels for three reasons. First, I have big cars and it will take up to 8 MF Megs Magnet towels to do my Sequoia. Secondly, no matter how good your MF drying towels are, they can introduce swirl marks in soft black paint like is on my Acura MDX. To keep swirls away, I lay the towels on the pain and pat-dry, keeping the "wiping" to a minimum. Third, minimizing the use of towels keeps the laundry to a minimum. I have have two dedicated piles of MF towels. The one's I use for the paint & other towels that I use for non-paint surfaces. Once dried, I use UQD with plush MF towels using very light pressure. 

Between Wash Care:

I have tried many products and techniques to rid the dust and extend my time between washes. The fact of the matter is that everything you do in between washes can introduce swirl marks. UQD is a fantastic product to make the black paint pop after you've waxed or right after you've washed/dried your black paint. But in my experience, I would not suggest using it in between washes to remove dust on black paint. The lubrication in this product is great, but we're talking about black paint which will show swirls even with the greatest care doing this type of wipe-down. Once I wash/dry & UQD'ed my cars, I don't touch the paint till the next wash (and yes... I've tried the California Duster too. It too can leave marks or wax residue on/in the paint).

My friends & family think I'm crazy going to these steps, but when you buy a black vehicle, you're signing-up for a different level of care in return for a finish that beats any other color when it's clean and looking it's best in the sun. 

I hope my experience helps the other weekend-warriors out there. If anyone has any other tips or tricks, I'm all ears!!!

Products/Technigue:

1. Two bucket/grit-guard using Gold Class Car Wash

2. Third bucket/grit-guard for wheels, close to the ground fenders & wheel wells

3. Megs Clay

4. G110 v2 D/A M205 softbuff 2.0 polishing pad (speed: 4)

5. G110 v2 D/A M205 softbuff 2.0 finishing pad (speed: 4)

6. G110 v2 D/A Rejex softbuff 2.0 finishing pad (x2 waiting 12 hrs between coats)

7. UQD

I use Rejex b/c of the longevity of the product and the ability to use it on my clearbra. That said, the key to a great black finish is M205. In my 20+ years taking car of cars, it's the best product I've used for polishing/jeweling and minor corrections. It's fantastic at removing light swirls and bringing out the best in your finish. If you need more correction, obviously, M105 is my go-too. No question in my mind that M105/M205 is the best 1-2 combo on the market. 

Hybrid Tea Rose

The weather this week has been very hot.  Daytime high this weekend has been in the 90'sF.  However, the temperature cool down considerably in the evening and at night.  The house unfortunately has retained heat and make the temperature inside very very warm.  This time of year makes me wish I have a whole-house fan.  This contraption sucks the hot air out of the house and let cool air from the outside to come in and cool the house down considerably.

Fortunately, hot day and cool night has benefits.  Especially if you like roses or tea rose which likes full sun and hot day and cool night.  We have a couple of them bloom literally this morning.  The one that we have are: "Queen Elizabeth", and "Peach".  The size of it at this time is about 2" or 5 centimeters.

Stereopony's 「Arigatou」ありがとう

My favorite band... Stereopony

Arigatou... From their Final Live concert 12/27/2012

http://en.verygooddays.com/stereopony/lyrics/arigatou-lyrics/

http://youtu.be/j1bZh41LM60

me wo samaseba yume dato
waraetara iinoni
kimi ga inai sekai wa
monokuro ni mieru yo

futari de hitotsu no yume wo mita ne
sugoshita jikan wa kitto nani yori shiawase datta

stay with me
massugu na hitomi de taiyou no youni warau
kimi no hikari abite
saiteiru ima wa mada yowaku chiisana yume mo shinjite kureta
ookina te no hira mo aruku ushiro sugata mo zutto oboeteru
ano hi no yakusoku
kokoro wo tsunagu yasashii kaze
sunaoja nakute gomen
shiawase wo arigatou

kumo hitotsu nai sora shiroi ano benchi de
bokura no mainichi wa tsuzuku to omotteta
senobi shite itsumo tsuyogatteta
mirai no fuan mo kimi to nara sou naite waratte

stay with me
massugu na hitomi de taiyou no youni warau
kimi no hikari abite
saiteita furueteru boku wa
itsumo senaka ni yuki moratta
ima dakara ieruyo kokoro kara tsutaetai
ai wo arigatou
yume janai uso janai
kanjiteita nukumori

chiisana koto datte uso tsukanai kara
dare ni datte itsumo yasashiku suru kara
hito no itami no wakaru ningen ni naruyo
dakara ne mou sukoshi onegai kamisama tsuretekanaide

kimi ni aitakute aitakute
namida ga tomaranai
ano yasashii koe
oboeteru yakusoku shita yo ne
donna toki demo soba ni irutte

massugu na hitomi de taiyou no youni warau
kimi wo kanjiru yo
arigatou arigatou
itsumademo wasurenai kara
sunao ja nakute gomen
shiawase wo arigatou

TRANSLATION

I wish it was just a dream
And just laugh away
The sight without you
It’s so dull

You and I had the same dream
It was the happiest time whilst you were here

Stay with me
You had laughed like the sun while looking straight forward
And I felt you fill me with light
You had believed in my blooming dream that was small and fragile
I can remember your large hands and the posture of your back anytime
The promise on that day
The gentle wind when I could feel your heart
I’m sorry I was not docile
Thank you for giving me happiness

Sitting on the white bench under the blue sky with not a single cloud
I thought our life would go on
I always pretended to be strong
I thought I could get over the anxiety with you while weeping and laughing

Stay with me
You had laughed like the sun while looking straight forward
And I felt you fill me with light
When I was scared
You encouraged me from behind
I can swear in my heart now
Thank you for your love
It wasn’t a dream, not a lie
I was really feeling your warmth

I’ll never cheat even if it’s trivial
I’ll be gentle to people always
I’ll take care of those in pain
So, Please God don’t take him away because of something small (that he did or what happened)

I miss you, I miss you
I can’t stop the tears
remembering that gentle voice
Do you remember you promised me
You would always be beside me?

You had laughed like the sun while looking straight forward
And I can feel you
Thank you, thank you
I’ll never forget you
I’m sorry I was not docile
Thank you for giving me happiness

credits:verygooddays

Always with me. いつも何度でも

Watching "Spirited Away" again today for the first time in years.
I forgot how much I love the song - "Always with me" and how deeply the meaning is to me.
Especially meaningful now that I meditated daily.

Window of beginning, stillness, new light of the dawn
Let my silent, empty body be filled and reborn 

No need to search outside, nor sail across the sea
Cause here shining inside me, it's right here inside me 

I've found a brightness, it's always with me

The following Romanji lyric and a translation courtesy of http://www.nausicaa.net/w/images/5/56/Sen_Lyrics.txt

YouTube line to the music with lyric.
http://youtu.be/zB87faMJpEc

Itsumo Nando Demo
-----------------
Lyrics by Wakako Kaku 
Music and Vocal by Yumi Kimura

Yondeiru Mune no Dokoka Okude 
Itsumo Kokoro Odoru Yume wo Mitai 

Kanashimi wa Kazoekirenai kedo 
Sono Mukou de Kitto Anata ni Aeru 

Kurikaesu Ayamachi no Sonotabi Hito wa 
Tada Aoi Sora no Aosa wo Shiru 
Hateshinaku Michi wa Tsuzuite Mieru keredo 
Kono Ryoute wa Hikari wo Dakeru 

Sayonara no Toki no Shizukana Mune 
Zero ni Naru Karada ga Mimi wo Sumaseru 

Ikiteiru Fushigi Sinde Iku Fusigi 
Hana mo Kaze mo Machi mo Minna Onaji 

Yondeiru Mune no Dokoka Oku de 
Itsumo Nando demo Yume wo Egakou 

Kanashimi no Kazu wo Iitsukusu yori 
Onaji Kuchibiru de Sotto Utaou 

Tojiteiku Omoide no Sono Naka ni Itsumo 
Wasure takunai Sasayaki wo Kiku 
Konagona ni Kudakareta Kagami no Ue nimo 
Atarashii Keshiki ga Utsusareru 

Hajimari no Asa Shizuka na Mado 
Zero ni Naru Karada Mitasarete Yuke 

Umi no Kanata niwa Mou Sagasanai 
Kagayaku Mono wa Itsumo Koko ni 
Watashi no Naka ni Mitsukerareta Kara 

Always with Me
--------------
Somewhere, a voice calls, in the depths of my heart
May I always be dreaming, the dreams that move my heart

So many tears of sadness, uncountable through and through
I know on the other side of them I'll find you

Everytime we fall down to the ground we look up to the blue sky above
We wake to it's blueness, as for the first time

Though the road is long and lonely and the end far away, out of sight
I can with these two arms embrace the light

As I bid farewell my heart stops, in tenderness I feel
My silent empty body begins to listen to what is real

The wonder of living, the wonder of dying
The wind, town, and flowers, we all dance one unity

Somewhere a voice calls in the depths of my heart
keep dreaming your dreams, don't ever let them part

Why speak of all your sadness or of life's painfull woes
Instead let the same lips sing a gentle song for you

The whispering voice, we never want to forget,
in each passing memory always there to guide you

When a miror has been broken, shattered pieces scattered on the ground
Glimpses of new life, reflected all around

Window of beginning, stillness, new light of the dawn
Let my silent, empty body be filled and reborn

No need to search outside, nor sail across the sea
Cause here shining inside me, it's right here inside me

I've found a brightness, it's always with me