Patrick's Diary - 9/29/2015

It's the second morning I was about to get onto the new toll lane on I-405 southbound. While I was waiting on ramp for getting into the freeway, I wondered if the carpool lane could also be open for me to go through the ramp. Since there was no new instruction on any sign, I was afraid to violate the traffic rule. However, it makes sense to have the drivers who plan to use toll lanes after driving onto freeway allowed to use carpool lane on the ramp as well. Random video checks can ensure people would take chance not to use the toll lane after going through the carpool lane. I eventually arrived at the office at 7:30 am. Sweet!

Again, I drove on the regular lane on I-405 Northbound after I came back home in the afternoon. It's not bad because I left the office a little bit earlier before the true rush hours arrived, in addition, the use of the toll lanes may really ease the heavy congestions. 

An alumnus from the college I first ever enrolled at age of 18 set up a group chat on Webchat and sent me a scan code through e-mail 3 days ago in order to have me joining it. So far, it has grown to 70 members. We were requested to put our name, major, freshmen year and current location as alias in this group. So mine is: Patrick He-Civil Engineering 84-Seattle, of course, in Chinese: "何峰 工民建八四二班 美国西雅图“. Students like us moving to other countries generally have studied at several other universities to advance our careers, however, our first college is always our alma mater. By the way, it was named China Institute of Mining and Technology when I enrolled. 

After watching this 15 minutes beautiful clip, I recall that I had been impressed by our campus as soon as I arrived there in the last week of August in 1984. At that time, the institute was relocated from Szuchuan to Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province not very long ago. The initial investment for the new campus was RMB 400M. We had modern buildings, beautiful man-made lakes and upscale sports facilities. Because my English score of China Universal College Entrance Exam in 1984 was great, I was selected into Honor English Class the first evening, yes, it's an evening class, when our freshmen years began. In addition to our primary English teacher who was a 20 years old Chinese girl just graduating from college herself, yes, she went to college at age of 16, we were lucky to have an American lady coaching us practicing oral English. I remember I was her most favorite student in that class. She was a professional educator and came from Albion, Michigan with her husband and a 15 years old son. In one of the evenings, she told us a story of how she learned German when she studied abroad in Germany: one night after she had intensively learned German for quite a while, she suddenly dreamed in German. After a couple of years when I lived in English environment in Bahamas, I started dreaming in English occasionally, then I could sense what she taught us. Our primary English teacher was a very lovely Chinese girl, I could have dated her. I just checked a pretty recognizable Chinese University Ranking List, it's a shame that our alma mater drops to 75th, I remember that it was ranked one of the top 30 several years ago when I checked. I guess Coal Mining is becoming a sunset industry, so the popularity and importance of our alma mater have been going down gradually. However, with the helps of alumni like us, I think we can get its ranking back. 

Oh, after posting my original diary, I checked out another authentic Chinese University Ranking List: The Best 2015 Professional Ranking List of Chinese Universities

Our Alma Mater ranks 36th, this makes more sense. 

Patrick's Diary - 9/28/2015

I-405 Toll Lanes was open on Sunday, I got onto it on Monday morning. It led my van go through heavily congested section from Bothell to Bellevue. I arrived at office within one hour. In the afternoon, I didn't mind to spend more time on regular lane to listen to the songs played by Spirit. I decided to use toll lane in the morning but not in the afternoon going forward. It probably will cost me 50 bucks a month. Yes, I opened an account at Good to go right before I drove out on road in the morning. 

I didn't say anything about Boehner's resignation, it's probably not fair for him. It sounded a surprise when he announced his sudden decision. He might wake up from his political dream after listening to Pope's words. 

Putin might also not be able to keep silence. He showed himself a heavy factor in the world this week too. Meeting Obama, was he fulfilled?

Monday Night Football might be great but I didn't watch it. Anyway, I learned the result somewhere, maybe on Twitter. Green Bay won over KC big. 

Patrick's Diary - 9/27/2015

As I shared on twitter, I just had two weird dreams right before waking up. The first was that I walked on a very crowded street in Europe with one of my ex-wives to head to an entertaining place, might be an opera house or a movie theater. It might be triggered by the late night talk show on HBO in which several topics about Europe were discussed by the host I watched right before falling into sleep last night. Though the topics included current situations of migrants, the atmosphere in my dream was very harmonious. The second was that I was playing tennis with a person whose face wasn't visible to me because we were on a track for 100 meters dash by the side of a soccer field. It was a super long court for playing tennis. I hadn't gone out to watch lunar eclipse last night but just went out to watch the full moon in the sky, which was very bright but blood had faded. 

On Sunday morning, I drove my van out of the garage at 7:30 and headed to gym to work out. It's sunny but a little bit chilly. Driving by the Christian Church by the intersection of North Road and Filbert Road, I could foresee many Christians would come to pray at 10:00 am. 

Stopping by McDonald's to have breakfast, I saw a group of motorists riding their bikes towards the parking lot when I parked my car. Sitting at a small table by the window, I even heard their conversations. One of them was named Patrick as well, he probably was at his fifties or sixties and kept introducing his son to others. I didn't particularly pay attention to his son, so don't know his age by telling his appearance. It's a nice day, those guys must enjoy the rides. After it, I worked out my weekend routine: 1 hours on treadmill; 200 times weightlift; 10 minutes on bike. I felt very fulfilled at the end, especially I ate too many pieces of cakes last night for my son's birthday, sugar in my blood was needed to be shaken off. I saw a gal on a bike whom I played indoor soccer once or twice two years ago but didn't greet to her because she was talking to another gal then. 

This Sunday was Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. As a matter of fact, my middle school advisor and classmates had greeted each other on Wechat since mid week last week. However, I hadn't know which day the holiday would be then. To film a clip for our family's celebration at the lunch table, I posted it on Wechat: my mom was still cooking then. 

Since I was't in that clip, I selfied one to greet to my classmates. After posting it, I realized that I didn't wash my face after coming back from gym. It didn't really matter because those men and women grew up with me since 6 or 7 years old, some of them were our neighbors, so even had known me prior to elementary school. 

Why we had Festival celebration at lunch instead of dinner was that my son would go back to his dorm. On the way I drove him there, I advised him to focus on three things in the new quarter: Study and workout effectively, both are equally important and have to be balanced very well. Then socializing if he has enough time and energy. His current plan is to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Economics, which most likely will lead him to apply a PhD program eventually. After successfully completing Math 125 and Econ 300, he would be able to finish Math 126 and Econ 301 next quarter; In Spring, he can wrap up the last required course - STAT 311 to be ready to apply the major before the 2nd Friday in Autumn Quarter in his Junior year. Meanwhile he can select a higher level writing class in Spring to enhance his writing skills for Writing Assessment, which is also required to take before the application. Since he enrolled UW, I found his writing abilities had been improved significantly after successfully earning the good grades in English and social science courses including both Econ, Philosophy and Psychology. Graduates of College of Arts and Sciences are required to earn credits in foreign languages. Since he had confirmed his interest in going to Sweden for Study Abroad, I recommended him to take Swedish 101 through 103 in his Junior Year. He can go to Uppsala in his Senior Year for an entire year then come back to UW to get the degree by enrolling one more quarter. Though most of classes are taught in English but those for Economics are in Swedish at Uppsala. Stockholm University is always an option but he prefers a smaller neat town atmosphere. Of course, if he decides not to study abroad, he can always earn credits in Chinese, which had been his first spoken language for 12 years or French, which he earned 2 years high school credits. He sounded agreeing to all these recommendations. He actually would buy the textbook for Econ 300 later. He actually doesn't need to buy the access code of Webassign for Math 125 because the one for Math 124 he already paid for in last quarter is carried over. It looks like the only cost is for that Econ book in this quarter. 

Dropping him off, I sped up on I-5 to head home to catch Seahawks' home opener on TV. I seemed having plenty of time because the game wouldn't kick off until 1:15 pm. 

Lynch was not energized to start today. Was he mad because I supported Huskies to beat Golden Bears so passionately yesterday? CAL was a better team yesterday and Lynch is still a Beast anyway. I heard later the official reason for his lack of enthusiasm was driven by hamstring injury. However, my focus in this afternoon was Sounders taking SKC in Kansas City because it's a more critical match for MLS playoff berth. Pineda set a 45 degree overhead pass to Martins to score and Dempsey missed two one on one scoring opportunities, one was crossed by Valdez, another was passed by Martins. At the end, we were lucky to get a draw away from home. 

Chicago Bears are being restructured under new coaching staff, it's not a surprise for Seahawks to shut them down at Century Link Field. 

After a brief dinner, my dad asked me to watch a Chinese program for Mid-Autumn Festival celebration on TV in their master bedroom. Though I had planned to do it, I changed my mind after noticing that Exodus was being played on one of HBO channels. I missed watching it in theater last year. The movie seemed based on the story of The Books of Moses, I pulled the book from the shelf, then read the related parts while watching the movie on screen. 

The movie triggered me to recall that the first time I learned "Exodus" was through a piece of music on radio in 1977 when I was 11, of course, I learned the title of the music in Chinese translation: 出埃及记。

Back then, I felt this piece of artworks was so amazing. At this moment after I listened to this version, I am still impressed. 

Patrick's Diary - 9/26/2015

In order to sleep a little bit longer this morning, I skipped the first televised BPL match in which Tottenham beat Manchester City 4 to 1. At 7:00 am, I started watching Manchester United hosting Sunderland. In the first half, Sunderland had been defending very well until the last 10 seconds. Memphis scored a goal for host in injury time. After second half started only a minute, the crossing ball hit Rooney's knee to bounce into the back of the net. In the final minute of the whole match, Mata kicked a high ball to score the 3rd for Manchester United. It's a big win. 

Dropping my parents at Ranch 99, I drove to UW Dorm to pick up my son. I thought it would take me at least half an hour to arrive there but I-5 was wide open. Calling my son to ask him to get down from his dorm, I noticed it was still pretty quiet on the street though it was 10 am already. My son had told me that he came back to dorm to sleep at midnight after the event ended. I assume many other kids probably did the same. 

Tomorrow will be Mid Autumn Festival for Chinese, so more customers were shopping at Ranch 99. You could see many packed and boxed mooncakes being on sale. Before I came back to pick them up, my dad had bought mooncakes at the bakery, I just needed to buy a birthday cake for my son. 

As usual, we stopped by Szuchuan Garden to have lunch. Today, I ordered the dishes well enough but without any leftover. It's delicious.

Lying on the couch after drinking a bottle of beer, I fell into sleep, so missed most of the first half of Huskies' football game hosting Cal. In the second half, they caught up only 6 points behind with 3 minutes left. However, their freshman quarterback threw an interception to lose the game at the end. Watching the postgame show, I figured they had had five turnovers in the first half, no wonder why did they lose the game. With the tough schedules ahead to play so many ranked Pac-12 rivalries, it's so difficult for them to qualify a bowl game in this season.

After the game, I suddenly realized that I forgot to buy the candles for my son's birthday, so decided to drive to Fred Meyer to buy a pack. My son heard my words and wanted to go with me. We drove there and grabbed a pack at the bakery inside Fred Meyer. I was about to film the moment my son would blow off the candles but he stopped me. However, I did catch the scenes while we were eating the cakes like sharing a big toasted chicken. 

Coming back to my bedroom, I watched Mariners at Angels for an inning while they were tied at 2 to 2. The game reminded me that I go to a game in June or July at Angel's Stadium in 2005 while I was living in the city of Cypress. In that game, Mariners beat Angels 3 to 0. 

Switching to StarZ, I found that one of my favorite old movies in 90s, Twister, was going to be replayed. In the following 1 hour and half, I focused on watching this exciting movie. Though I had watched it several times, I was still moved by all the scenes. It also triggered me to recall the attraction in Universal Orlando I appreciated in 1998. 

Patrick's Diary - 9/25/2015

Today is my son's 20th birthday. Around lunch time, I called him to confirm what time he would like me to pick him up at his dorm. He proposed that he would call me as soon as the mandatory meeting on his floor ended, possibly would be around 7:00 pm. 

I arrived at the office at 6:45 am because I planned to live close to 3:00 pm for a dental appointment. Everything fell into the plan, I arrived at Gentle Dental Lynnwood Office almost right on time at 4:00 pm. Alina, the hygienist, took care of me first. Dr. DJ, who has been my dentist for a long time exchanged greetings with me and briefly checked for me at the end. My next appointment would be in next March. Everyone in this office knows me very well. 

After dinner, I watched CNN News and College Football games on TV interchangeably while waiting for my son's call. Actually, I called him after 7:00 pm but he said he wanted to attend an event at night, which wouldn't end until midnight. I was really glad his willingness of participations of more social events at UW. He missed so many opportunities of Dawg Daze last year as freshman, but may be able to catch them all as a sophomore this weekend and next week. 

College Football came into the 3rd week. UW Huskies would take CAL Golden Bears in Alaska Airlines Field at Husky Stadium. This would be my focus. 

2016 Presidential Parties' nominations will be into hot battle field. Sanders is very aggressive. After securing New Hampshire and possibly Iowa, he delivered speech at U Chicago, his Alma mater. He may plan to start tackling Clinton in Midwest. In August, he had had successful rallies in Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles. Clinton is defending at current stage. Biden is watching the opportunity to get in. However, if the chance is slim, he won't jump in, I guess, he must calculate the financial risks very carefully because he and Sanders both can't afford big loss financially. Donald Trump is leading and may be able to get the nomination. He doesn't have political talents but his manner of being an alpha superior white man fits a group of Americans' perceptions given we are losing the global exclusive leadership. I will keep my campaign and lay out my detail plan gradually. Actually, I am going to start filming my own clips for my presidency instead of posting these guys'. 

Patrick's Diary - 9/24/2015

It's 12:18 am on Sunday now, I am already two days late of writing up my diary, this has become a normal for me in the past week. 

9/24/2015 is a dark day in Seattle's history. As I shared, I needed to leave the office in late morning to go home to pack for my son in order to have him moving into his dorm at Elm during the designated hours in the afternoon. While I was passing the exit of 160th Street on I-405, I heard the hostess on Spirit mentioned that a very severe buses collision just incurred on Aurora Bridge and 50 people were evaluated. The sad news shocked me, even distracted me from taking the exit of Bothell-Everett Highway. Eventually, I had to turn onto I-5 North and got back home through 164th Street. 

After sitting in front of my laptop in reading room, I kept checking the updates on the website of Seattle Times and learned 2 people had died and 12 other were in critical conditions. Eventually the fatalities increased to 4. Many reports had described this accident in detail, so I don't need to elaborate it. I would like to express my condolences. These individuals wished to experience beautiful Seattle and learn American cultures given they were all international students at North Seattle Community College, but sacrificed their lives here. 

Actually, several minutes ago, I read the updates on website of Seattle Times again and learned that four victims were 49 years old Austrian woman, 35 years old Japanese woman, 18 years old Indonesian student and 17 years old Chinese minor. It's so painful for their families and city of Seattle. 

It's such a bless that my son goes to UW, which is only 20 miles away from our house in Bothell. Because of this advantage, we just packed beddings and clothes into two bags, a plenty of room was still available in one of the bags, so I even put his laptop case and backpack into it. If anything was left at home, I always can send it to him at his dorm. The commute is shorter than what I travel to work everyday. After packing, I messed up the floor in the reading room again. 

Due to the earlier fatal accident on Aurora Bridge, it sounded the traffic was heavily congested everywhere, however, I managed to drive through the local routes to approach UW campus without encountering too much trouble. Getting a green flag at designated parking lot, we were heading to Elm.

Per instruction, my son went to the lobby at Elm to get his room key, he had lived in the same room during his freshman year, so it was just like coming back home for him. A UW student came over to help carry the bags while my son was still in the lobby. I pulled two big bags and put into the cart and chatted with that young man. He learned that my son was a sophomore, so everything wasn't new. Because the whole move-in process was exactly the same as that in last year, it only took us 5 minutes to get it done. My son had planned to go home because the next day would be his birthday. However, there would be a meeting in the evening on Friday scheduled by residence advisors on their floor, so he decided to stay until late Friday night. In addition, he really wanted to spend more time to attend events before the quarter starts on 9/30. 

Coming back home, eating dinner, I watched different pieces of news on CNN for a while, then fell into sleep. At 10:30 pm, I got up to drive to gym where I hadn't gone to work out for almost 3 weeks. One Sunday, I practiced soccer pretty hard on the playground at Lynnwood High School, which probably hurt the muscle on the bottom of my left foot. It hadn't caused the pain for the first several days but caused the problems a week later, I even wasn't able to walk normally for a week. The pain was gone last week, so I decided to resume workout. When I arrived at gym, there were only 2 or 3 people left there. I didn't complete my weekday routine. At the moment I was heading to the door, the guy at front desk said "Drive Safe" to me. Generally, these guys only say "have a good night", I could tell the impact of earlier fatal accident was on everyone. 

Ok, I would need to start early two days in row because I would have a dental appointment at Gentle Dental at 4:00 pm on Friday. 

Patrick's Diary - 9/23/2015

I just came back from gym, it's already 12:03 am on Friday. Several things happened in Seattle yesterday, but let me wrap up the diary for the day before yesterday first.

Since I need to drive my son to move into his dorm at UW during the designated hours on Thursday, I had worked long hours in the first three days to accumulate more hours to flex my time. I don't want to use my vacations because I had used up almost every hour in July when we went to Sweden and several other countries. I want to accumulate enough hours for our scheduled road trip next August.

It's another busy day both in East Coast and West Coast: Chinese President visited Everett factories in the morning, walked around Microsoft campus in the afternoon and ended up his field trip at Lincoln High School in Tacoma, I don't know if he had a dinner at Gates' residence eventually or not. Pope had another high profile day at White House. 

Sounders beat Whitecaps at Century Link Field the 2nd time in a week to proceed to the next round of Concacaf Champion League. Unfortunately, the match wasn't televised, I learned the result online later. The clip I just posted tells me that Negal scored twice and Barrett added one, another 3-0 win after last weekend. I had planned to go to the field to watch it but didn't make it. 

Checking my son's UW account, I suddenly realized that I hadn't paid for his dorm and dinning account. It was $4,317. Though it won't be due until mid October, I decided to pay it through Credit Card anyway because the billing cycle probably is the same no matter when do I pay it before the due date. Another almost $4,000 will be due the similar date for his tuition in Autumn quarter. According to my estimate, cost for each quarter is approximately $10,000, total cost for 3 quarters in a year is $30,000, if adding additional $10,000 for his total spending including everything during summer, winter and spring breaks, it will cost $120,000 until he is supposed to graduate in May, 2018. Compared to many other parents, I should feel lucky, though it is still a lot of money. 

In addition to tuition, housing and dinning, textbooks also cost a lot. He will take three classes in this quarter: 

• Math 125 - Integral; 
• Econ-300 - Intermediate MicroEcon;
• Drama 251 - Acting.      

Fortunately, he can keep using the same book as he used for Math 124 and Acting class doesn't require a textbook, so he only needs to buy a book for Econ 300, which costs $300 including tax and Webassign Access Code for Math 125, which costs 100 bucks. I'm not sure if he will go to University Store to buy the book himself this weekend or not. 

However, $120,000 in total for the next 3 years doesn't include the cost of a new car I plan to buy for him next July. So, I plan to save extra 1,000 bucks per month from this month, then we will have 10K extra savings then. This saving will come from monthly rent of my rental townhouse.  Of course, if he can get a job on campus or an internship in Junior or Senior year, he can help himself a bit financially. However, I need to prepare whatever a father can do.

Ok, I will go downstairs to make a cup of jasmine tea, then come back to finish the diary for yesterday.

Patrick's Diary - 9/22/2015

I actually wrote this part in early morning but only saved the incomplete portion without posting, let me finish it now.

It is 2:14 am on Wednesday, is it Valentine's Day? Of course not, it is 2:14 o'clock in the morning. Valentine's Day has been meaningless in my life for a long time. It's no longer a priority at my age by any means. I actually care more about when my son's romantic life will start. Oh, he definitely needs to learn to drive and get a driver's license. His plan is to do it in the coming June after his sophomore year, then in July, I will buy a cheap but new car for him. We plan a road trip in August to drive up to Canada, then across country to East Coast, turn around and drive down to Boston to come back to Seattle on I-90. The route will cover:

Seattle - Banff - Calgary - Winnipeg - Toronto - Ottawa - Montreal - Halifax - Portland (Maine) - Boston - (Mainly through I-90 West) - Seattle

I have driven across country twice in the last 18 years but never done it in Canada. We may drive down to New York City to spend 2 nights at Broadway but it won't be a priority for this road trip. After coming back home, he will become an experienced driver. However, I need to check out driving rules in other States for a new driver. He will be almost 21 years old then, so I don't think there are restrictions for him to drive. 

Chinese President is in town, his presence caused blocked freeways and roads all over Seattle. He definitely is an VIP here. However, Pope is in Washington D.C., who obviously is covered by media dominantly. I am wondering who arranged this very extreme comparison across the country. Intentionally or coincidentally? It is Christianity against Communism? I don't think Chinese President considers himself a communist in his mind any more and Pope even criticizes excessive Capitalism spread over the world. Everything is dynamic instead of static nowadays. 

I am not sure which airport Pope's airplane landed but heard Chinese President's landed at Paine Field in Everett. I just realized that Paine Field has the capacity having large airplanes landing given tested airplanes such as 787 frequently do it there. 

It sounded a very hyper day all over the country but mine had been very quiet and normal. Toward the end of the day, I drove to Safeway to have my parents' medication refilled before going home. While waiting, I bought a grande green tea latte and sat at the table behind the Starbucks' stands. 

Tim, Whitney and Lisa were at the Pharmacy. When I returned to the counter, they already got my parents' medications ready. Before walking out of the store to the parking lot, I sat down at the testing station to have my blood pressure checked. It was pretty high but normal after a long day sitting in front of the monitor. 

Patrick's Diary - 9/21/2015

As the first working day of the week, you can imagine it was pretty busy. As I shared that I was pretty tired through the weekend, so even hadn't got up until almost 7:00am. The traffic was pretty congested and I arrived at office around 9:00am. 

It's already 8:00pm after I had dinner, I came back to my bedroom to watch on CNN. As I had learned earlier, Scott Walker dropped out of GOP Presidential Nomination and Ben Carson made religions related political comments. They need to reshuffle because it is not clear for Americans what their political agenda is as a party. Too many cooks are in the kitchen, it might have been eye-popping but it's the time for the clarification. My impression at this stage is that every candidate is trying to get nominated no matter what her/his true belief is. 

Pope would be coming, actually he is already in US today, religions become a hot topic again nationwide. Because I read so many books associated with religions when I was a teenager, I was even told that one of my mom's ancestors might be a missionary, I have been interested in religions since childhood. However, I view them from my own perspective.

When I was in middle school, I lived in an apartment building, which faced Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception right across the old Second Ring Road, It was the only symbolic Christian church in Beijing in my mind. However, 1/4 of the residents in our apartment building were Muslim who were Uyghur working for The Bureau of Minority Translations, most of them were very good friends of our family, which was pretty odd because Han families in that building were friendly but not very close to them. Their kids came to our apartment to play almost everyday. When they celebrated their holidays, we were the only family invited to their parties out of their own circle. 

When I lived in Nassau, Bahamas in 1988, I often stopped by a very small church on the street paralleling to Bay Street. I seemed getting sort of comfort while living in a new place. This is the only photo I could find, I lost so many photos. 

I learned Church of Sweden more comprehensively than other denominations when I was there in 90s. Actually, I have been updating my knowledge through various websites from time to time in the last several years. According to my new knowledge, it has been significantly changed after January 1st, 2000. However, when I came back there in July, I was still very impressed by all the cathedrals, definitely, Uppsala Cathedral is always the best. 

In my view, the mission of all religions is to save the world from poverty and disaster. The stories in Arabian Nights I read when I was 13 are all very fascinating and beautiful as well.

Patrick's Diary - 9/20/2015

It's 3:03 in the morning on Tuesday, I still haven't written my diary for Sunday. Yeah, I spent too much time on watching matches and games in addition to grilling steaks and baking potato, so, at the end of Sunday, I was exhausted.

I decided to stay in bed to sleep more hours, then went downstairs to watch soccer match on big screen in our living room. The broadcast schedule wasn't as busy as that on Saturday, I had already missed the only televised Bundesliga match and almost the first half of the BPL match. The most expensive teen Martial kept shining at Manchester United, he scored twice to help the team beat Southhampton.

While I was watching the soccer match, my mom went downstairs to sit in the kitchen. She expected me to go buying stuff for our planned barbecue lunch. Her plan was to marinate the steaks with wine and sauces before I put them onto the grill. As the cook of the family, she always wants to contribute her skills no matter who else is in charge. I actually heard her to complain to my dad later that I wasn't in hurry when she had already been so inpatient. However, my plan was not to have her doing anything but I would soak the steaks with wine and soy sauce while I was grilling. Everything would be in real time. 

After watching Manchester United beating Southhampton, I was on my way to Costco to buy groceries. Normally, I go to the one in Aurora Village of which was the Costco Warehouse I shopped first ever in my life because it's the closest one after I drop off my parents at Ranch 99 for shopping Chinese groceries. The one in Everett is actually the closest to our house, so I decided to go there. 

It's Seahawks' gameday, I could see many shoppers wearing Seahawks' jerseys in the parking lots and inside the warehouse. Picking up what I needed for Barbecue in addition to those on the list my mom wrote down for me, I proceeded to the register. The gal who helped load the stuff into the cart asked me if I needed a box or not, I wanted it for convenience. She might think I didn't really have Scandinavian mentality if she had read my tweet the night before. 

I did buy a bottle of wine but planned to stop by the Safeway to buy a sweet one of which isn't sold at Costco. Going through the intersection of Route 96, I just noticed that the Safeway by the right hand side of Bothell-Everett Highway was out of the business. Had I known it, I would have stopped by Fred Meyer across the street before driving through the traffic lights. Then, I had to drive to the other one across the street of Thrasher's Corner to buy it. 

It's already 12:15 pm when I arrived at home. The first thing I wanted to do was to turn TV onto Pac-12 to watch UW hosting Harvard at Husky Soccer Field. I hadn't had chance to watch UW's soccer match since the opening night in this season. The highlight bar said that the broadcast was cancelled due to technical difficulties, which I thought was an excuse though it was a very windy day. I tweeted that I would boycott Pac-12 for a week including Huskies' Football Game against CAL, the picture of the soccer field was brought on and the boycott was revoked. Ok, you can treat this as a joke. 

Keeping watching the match on TV through the sliding door, I started grilling the steaks while having the coil-wrapped potato baked. It's very windy and branches could have fallen down to my shoulders or hit the grill. My dad was standing beside me to chat with me. I initiated the topic of the role in politics through social network, he was very interested in it and made the comments from his perspectives.

My mom didn't want the steak, I made a double cheese burger for her. She asked my dad to boil soy milk for us as drinks. The steaks I made might not be as fancy as those at Ruth's Chris or Outback, they were very tasty by my standards. My mom still insisted that I let her marinate them first though my dad and my son all disagreed with her. My son asked me to make a cheese burger for him after having the big piece of steak, then he went out to walk around the neighborhood to digest. 

UW's soccer match got into 2 periods of Overtime, I moved to the coffee table to sit on the coach to keep watching. Baked potato was ready but my son was full and I became the only one eating it. Mixed with sour cream, it was as delicious as the ones served at any restaurant. The match was a draw at the end. The rule of college soccer is a little bit different: There is no injury time during the regulation because the timeout has been excluded from the playtime but there will be two periods of 10 minutes overtime if the match is tied after 90 minutes. If the match is still tied after overtime, it will be a draw just like the outcome of this match. The play rule is more like football's. 

Seahawks' second week was the big event for the fans, however, no one really expected them to win on road, especially at Green Bay Packers. Lambeau Field is their fans' holy land. In the first half, Seahawks didn't play productively. In 3rd quarter, Wilson did throw the ball accurately to lead Baldwin's touchdown. I guess all Seahawks' fans are waiting for the home opener. 

Ok, it's 4:30 am, I will go back to the bed to sleep for another hour. I may have to write my diary for yesterday tonight. 

Patrick's Diary - 9/19/2015

Chelsea beat Arsenal, I didn't see Wenger shaking hands with Mourinho. Muller was subbed in the last 20 minutes and Munich had dominated the match in Bundesliga. Did Manchester lose to West Ham at the end? I didn't watching the most playtime of 2nd half because of Huskies' home game. According to the clip, they lost 1-2.

Utah State is not a team at the same level as Washington Huskies. Especially at home, Huskies dominated the game. 81 yards kickoff return touchdown was amazing.

During college football season, I like searching each possible game across all the channels Comcast Program I subscribe. I have done this since 15 years ago. Before Huskies' game started, I did it again. My current Xfinity program covers games televised on Saturday on the following channels:

• abc
• NBC
• CBS
• FOX
• Fox Sports Network 1
• ESPNU
• ESPNNEWS
• ESPN1
• ESPN2
• Root Sports
• Pac-12
• CBSSN
• SECND

Yes, these are well enough for me to catch on every Saturday, may be even too many.

I watched Huskies' game in my bedroom and switched to JoeTV for Sounders' match but fell into sleep until the 2nd half started. Sounders won 3-0 over Vancouver Whitecaps. Though I missed the first goal Ivanschitz made from a difficult angle with his left foot, I caught it several times in highlights. It's a decisive shot. Pineda made his first goal in the season. He was so excited. Martins scored 3rd. The last two goals were all passed by Dempsey though he himself didn't score, he deserved the credits. Former Husky Roldan made a timely straight pass to Dempsey to lead him to set up the 3rd goal. Sounders won Cascadia Cup away from home. Traveling fans were so joyful. 

We ate too much at lunch, so no one wanted dinner. However, close to 9:00 pm, I got down to kitchen to grab a bottle of beer, 2 pieces of bread and 2 marinated eggs. Meanwhile I watched replay of the 1st half of Sounders game, caught the entire process of Ivanschitz's goal, it was made in the last minute. 

My 2016 Presidential Campaign will be officially kicked off at Democratic Debate on CNN on October 13, 2015. As I shared, my campaign slogan is to build "An Optimal Socialism in United States of America". Yes, Sanders' is the closest amongst all Presidential Candidates and his team is trying to make me as if a follower of his. People will learn during the debate who knows modern socialism more and deeper at that night. I am sure we have many agreements but I want to make this clear that I am not a supporter and I hate people always try to put me into a supporting role when many points were initiated by me. Today, Scandinavian model becomes a popular talking point of socialism, who actually experienced Swedish financial crisis in 1992 as I observed?

Extraordinary people are the driving agents for a productive and efficient social system. In the environment of Capitalism, this group of people become billionaires, which is the logical outcome due to human's greed and their own talents. Nowadays, these genius, at least, talents, need to sacrifice to help others in the first place. A very typical example in the world of Capitalism is that smart people tend to take others' advantages to make themselves be successful at maximum, this doesn't happen in the system of Socialism.

Patrick's Diary - 9/18/2015

I went to Management Company's office to drop the check of homeowner due for my rental townhouse in the morning. When I planned to get onto I-5, the freeway was totally congested, the cars were stuck on the ramp extended to the street. I decided to drive through local to Ballinger Way. My plan was to eventually get onto I-405 but I made the wrong turn to West again. Going along 15th Ave., I made onto Westlake and went through Downtown Seattle, finally got onto I-90, switched to I-405, then arrived at the office. As soon as I made the wrong turn, I already realized it would be a stupid route but kept going while thinking to have a relaxed Friday morning drive. It cost me 2 hours in total from the moment I left home.

It's 4:17am in the morning on Saturday, I will start watching matches of BPL & Bundesliga, then College Football. Illini will be at North Carolina, which will be televised on ESPN2 and Huskies will host Utah State broadcast on Pac-12 Channel. Great Weekend is to kick off. 

At this moment, my assumption for Democratic Presidential Nomination is if Sanders has a possibility to beat Clinton, Biden will join the show. I guess by Democratic calculation, Sanders may not be able to win the election if he is nominated. This becomes Vermont's collaboration. I personally don't feel it bad but as I said, I supported Clinton in 2007.  However, no matter who is nominated at the end, I will keep running for this Presidency on social media.

Patrick's Diary - 9/17/2015

I felt pretty uncomfortable with my denture the entire day. Toward the end of the day in the office, I received an e-mail from Gentle Dental Lynnwood to remind me an appointment on next Thursday. Too bad, that appointment had been scheduled half a year ago, recently, my son received the move-in notification, which is also scheduled in the afternoon on Thursday. UW's autumn quarter starts in the end of September, which may be the latest nationwide, so I will need to drive him to move back to his dorm at ELM. Calling the dentist office, I had the appointment rescheduled to Friday, which happens to be my son's 20 years old Birthday. The lady on the phone promised to let me leave by 5:00 pm. 

I read a piece of good news on Facebook that UW ranks #4 on Reuters' World The Most Innovative Universities list after Stanford, MIT and Harvard and tops the public universities. Though my son's current goal is to become an economist rather than STEM related talents, he may innovate an universal economic model in future. This ranking is a high honor for UW. 

I just received a direct message on Twitter to mention if I or someone else want to quit smoking. Was someone triggered by my tweet yesterday? I quit smoking 18 years ago. However, I do think about I may need to quit drinking coffee. 

I am so excited that it is already Friday morning, after 15 hours, I will start enjoying another wonderful weekend. 

Patrick's Diary - 9/16/2015

I left home for work at 6:00 am and was still stuck at the ramp to wait for getting onto I-405. 

The traffic lights close to my working campus stopped me unusually long but I was fine because I would be able to park very close to the building at such a early time. 

As I said in the clip I filmed while I was waiting for getting onto freeway on the ramp, report said it would be raining but eventually didn't. On my way home, it was actually sunny. Approaching our house, I even could feel the sunshine warmly. 

After briefly watching NYC hosting Toronto, I suddenly realized that GOP Debate on CNN had kicked off. I had noticed the schedule of this debate but hadn't decided fully engaged until that moment. Overall, it was an interesting night. As you might know, I followed the entire debate even including the review of post-debate on CNN through my Twitter account. Trump has become a serious political figure since the beginning of his campaign, though he still can't get his debate right onto the points and make himself a serious candidate. However, he probably is still on the top of various polls. Jeb Bush seems a very legit one but Americans expect the fundamental changes, which may put him into a disadvantage given his established status. Fiorina performed very tough and calm with full confidence. No matter if do her points make senses, she must get many supporters after this debate. Christie acted as a very professional politician at this debate. Carson might lose some supporters because he wasn't able to impress the crowds as he had done in first debate on Fox, he actually talked about flat tax, which could have been a spark but he couldn't inspire the audiences with this topic. To me, the debate didn't have radical economic issues touched. Tax is always a sensitive topic, I prefer everyone paying fair shares in the first place instead of redistributing the wealth afterwards. Contributing to the society is an obligation everyone must do, paying fair shares doesn't grant anyone the glory. I didn't think anyone on the stage has more experiences on foreign policy than I have. I have a fundamental solution to have the most problematic region settled; I can influence Chinese and Russians to accept Western values; I am totally accepted by Europeans; I can inspire Africans to build their modern lives because they know I really want everyone in this world to enjoy the life; I am a super soccer fan and still able to play competitive soccer including making bicycle kicks at the age of 49, which connects me naturally with Latin Americans. To answer the question of "What do you expect the world to be after you leave the office if you are elected", I am confident that the world will only need one leader because I will have integrated the entire world into one nation. 

At the end of the debate, I heard the moderator reminded that Democratic Debate be going to be held on October 13th. I am not sure in addition to Clinton and Sanders, who else will be on the stage. Has Biden declared his candidacy? As I said, I supported Clinton in 2008 election but she couldn't become Democratic candidate after surprisingly defeated by Obama. After 8 years, I don't know if she is truly enthusiastic for this election or cares about financial remedy more because I learned that her surprisingly loss to Obama put her into financial hardship. Her current problem is her established status just like Bush encounters. However, she is still the most competitive candidate if I am not allowed to join the show. Sanders has claimed himself a socialist but he doesn't really know the optimal socialism. He keeps criticising a party, which actually is the one of the major forces to having a successful and efficient socialistic system operated. I will join the Democratic debate through Twitter to help voters understand what the modern socialism is. No, don't get me wrong just because I was born and raised in Beijing, I never believe in so-called "Socialism in Chinese style (manner)". An optimal socialism should be advanced from a successful capitalism. China and Russia are not able to skip that stage. 

Yep, this Sanders' clip I just watched reminds me the debate of Climate Changes.

as I tweeted, I don't believe Climate is really a critical issue but Americans should use resources carefully. If you live in Europe for a while, you will learn European's behaviors and attitudes towards resources conservations. We are given by God too many forests, lakes, so on and so forth, we may take all of these for granted. If we use our resources intelligently, climates will be changed even in favor of us more. 

Patrick's Diary - 9/15/2015

It's another relatively long day, so it's already 7:00 pm when I arrived at home. My mom cooked very delicious soup for dinner, of course, her focus is always the dishes she makes no matter what do others chat about at the table. 

I expected UEFA Champion League Group Stage was replayed on either FSN1 or ESPN but none of them was on. I still don't know the scores of the match PSG visiting Malmo. It's Ibra's homecoming. Let me check it out on Youtube, I didn't see it on Fox Sports' website earlier. Watching the clip, I just found out PSG winning by 2 goals, one was scored at a sharp angle by Di Maria and another was a header by Cavani. PSG may go further in this season, they own so many super stars.

Coming back to my bedroom, I briefly watched Mariners hosting Angels at home when they were behind 1-3. Switching to HBO, I decided to watch the last episode of Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies. I watched the new release in movie theater last year and recalled I was very impressed then. However, I turned the TV off after half an hour because I was almost falling sleep at that point. 

Patrick's Diary - 9/14/2015

It was cloudy and I just saw a photo posted by University of Washington on both Twitter and Facebook, which dramatized the heavy clouds in the sky. It's such an artistic blue view. 

Coming back home to catch Monday Night Football Doubleheader on ESPN, I was so confused by kickers' performances. It's not my invention that kickers can win the game for the team. Seahawks used Josh Brown to kick the 50 yard winning goal in the last second in a dozen games in 2000s. He made some of them and failed the rest. The following clip I found on Youtube shows Josh Brown's last moment winning goal over Cowboys in 2006. Back then, Seahawks could manage the clock very efficiently, which brought a lot of last second opportunities for kicker to shine. I actually learned this tactic from watching Seahawks' games both on TV and at Quest Field in those years. 

OK, I am about to fall into sleep in a minute. 

Patrick's Diary - 9/13/2015

I had planned to keep watching BPL & Bundesliga matches this morning but missed almost all of them because I fell into heavy sleep. It might be because I watched too many matches and games yesterday. I was a little bit disappointed at myself to miss two Bundesliga matches on FSN1 because they are not scheduled to be present every week on this channel. I watched the last 20 minutes of Aston Villa losing to Leicester so quickly by giving 3 goals up. 

All Seahawks' fans focused on their regular season opener in St Louis. However, it was a confusing game. Lockett extended his punt return TD from pre-season drama to this game to make the first TD for Seahawks. However, Seahawks didn't play very well overall both offensively and defensively. My gut told me that first, they actually helped Rams be kept in St. Louis because fans had lost confidence in this team and even in the games of football. I had heard two years ago sports fans in St. Louis didn't mind bringing a soccer team because they thought that soccer had a solid root in that area as well. Secondly, I believe that Seahawks players are helping Kam Chancellor get his big contract. It's not the end of the world, Seahawks is still the favorite contender of the Super Bowl. While fans in traditional football religious regions have started losing enthusiasms, we are actually picking up the steam. However, football has been loved in Seattle for decades anyway, so the fans' base is solid. 

I had kept sleeping after Seahawks' disappointment until almost 6pm, so missed the 2nd round of NFL games in the afternoon. When I turned on the TV again, Sunday Night Football on NBC had even started for half an hour. I read a tweet yesterday that Seattle Reign would play Washington DC Spirits in semi-final of National Women's Soccer League Championship and found out the schedule through TV guide. Before it was kicked off at 6:30 pm, I watched Orlando City beating Kansas City 3 to 1 at home, the fans there were so wild because this win illuminated their hope for the playoff slot. 

Before NWSL semi-final's scene was present on TV screen, I hadn't known it would be played at Memorial Stadium at the shadow of Space Needle. I actually played one match for a team at Greater Seattle Soccer League in early 2000 when I joined that team for 3 seasons. In that match, I acted like a captain to shout at everyone to inspire because our captain was absent and we had been behind by a goal for a long time. Eventually, we caught up a goal to tie. I remember everyone laughed at the end of the match because I hadn't realized the role I had played and they had accepted it. 

Reign had created so many opportunities but not scored until Fanez was subbed and scored in her first touch. After Rapinoe made the second goal at a 15 degree difficult angle, another sub, Bullock, scored the 3rd one in her first touch. It's a big night for subs. Reign will play a rematch of last year's final with Kansas City in Portland on October 1st. I definitely will follow it up on TV then. Last year, Reign lost to KC at home in the final.

To catch up the last 30 minutes of the match Manchester United hosting Liverpool through The Match of the Week, I missed filming the acrobatic bicycle kick made by Liverpool's Bentek but fortunately caught the one made by the most expensive teen Man Utd purchased. Martial dribbled through the defenders to make the shot to score. 

Ok, my busy weekend finally ended and we all have to go back to weekly routine in several hours.