Patrick's Diary - 10/26/2015

It's 2:51am on Wednesday, I am catching up my diary for Monday now.

It's always a busy day on Monday. Coming back home and having dinner, I had slept for 3 hours until almost 11. Glancing on my cell, I found my classmates at CUMT starting the trash talk again. The contents were actually pretty serious most of the time but the way we teased each other sounds humorous.

I joined the discussion and we focused on stock markets for quite a while. Someone seemed making almost RMB 10,000 yesterday. I asked them what level of money Chinese generally put into trading accounts now. My dorm buddy in mid-80s at CUMT told that from a couple of thousand RMB to over 10 million are all considered poor. I recall in early 90s when I traded in Chinese market, average traders input tens of thousands and those who treated trading as their professions generally put at least 500K into the trading accounts. However, after 20 years, 10 million is no longer an incredible benchmark. It was mentioned in the discussion someone in the chat group ever lost 2.5 Millions a day on paper because his capital was 30M. It's a huge loss but still understandable because it's within 10% volatility limits Chinese government sets.

I shared my knowledge about US traders nowadays that everyone is trading options. Raising an example, I mentioned that Twitter's stock price was up 2.01% but December Call at 33 bucks was up 21.89%, you put the same amount of money into the trade but gained 10 times more. Of course, you could lose 10 times more too. Actually, after earning release yesterday afternoon, its price dropped by 11% in aftermarket hour, then you probably lost every penny in that December call. The advantage of trading options is that you can put very small amount of money to gain meaningful profit to meet end needs, the risk is that you could lose everything pretty quickly.

Later on, the investing triggered me to think about my property in Beijing on which the compensation of demolition still hasn't been paid. The original assessment was almost RMB 20M 10 years ago but the final agreement dropped to 4M combined with cash and an apartment. However, Chinese government seems not intending to fulfill the commitment. 

The clip is part of the entire video I filmed in the summer in 2004 when I went back to Beijing to see my parents and my son. It was a very beautiful property then.

Ok, it is 1:19 am on Friday now, I am about to post this diary I drafted on Tuesday but just finished a minute ago...

  

Patrick's Diary - 10/25/2015

Keeping chatting with my classmates at CUMT over night until early morning on Sunday, we covered several topics. One of my classmates mentioned that Manchester Derby would be televised. We watched from both sides of the Pacific. It's a scoreless match but both teams played very hard. 

After lunch, I went to gym to workout and came back home to catch the most important match for me during this weekend. Sounders was hosting Real Salt Lake City in regular season finale. This was a crucial match for Sounders and they didn't disappoint the fans soaked by the rains. In the first 20 minutes, they had already scored three times. Dempsey's first goal was triggered by a perfect cross by Martins and Pappa's second goal was such a smart shot. Dempsey made his second after the ball was saved by Salt Lake City's goalkeeper. Eventually, Sounders took the 4th spot in Western Conference. They would host LA Galaxy at CenturyLink Field on Wednesday night. I definitely would go for it. 

After the match, Sounders Club hosted a ceremony for "Fans' Appreciation Day". I am not sure if I caught it correctly, did Sigi say that Sounders fans might not be the best fans of the world? Was it a joke? He should have said that Sounders fans are amongst the best fans in the world if he didn't want to exaggerate. 

Ok, workdays will start again, so I went to sleep at 11:00 pm on Sunday night...

Patrick's Diary - 10/24/2015

Watching Arsenal playing Everton, I didn't go to UW dorm to drop earphone for my son. After lunch, I drove to UW but was stuck at the traffic lights onto the bridge above I-5 onto 45th Street.  It seemed no way to get through quickly, I drove through several congested local roads, eventually approached my son's building. He came down to grab the earphone and dropped a request of ordering contact lenses for him. 

It's very smooth on I-5, I drove to  Safeway to refill the medications first. Chris and Barbara were at the counter today. Then, I went to gym to workout my weekend routine. 

While watching Washington visiting Stanford, I chatted with my classmates at CUMT on WeChat. It was Sunday morning in China, they were taking rest at home as well. At Safeway earlier, I bought half a dozen of Beck's, and bragged to them that I could drink them all while watching the football game. Huskies were not very competitive, they hadn't even scored until second half. Let's cross fingers to see if they can make a bowl game this season.

My plan was to keep my Presidential Campaign by laying out my economic plan based on one of the most influential fundamentals - Supply & Demand, but didn't have chance to do it. I will defer it to Sunday night, maybe next week. Yes, It is weekend, I want to rest. 

Patrick's Diary - 10/23/2015

It's Friday morning, so I decided to take it easy a little bit. Stopping by Burger King, I had a relatively long breakfast. 

Arriving at the office after 9:00 am, I stayed until 5:30 pm. 15 years ago, I used to work at least 6 days a week, maybe 10 to 12 hours a day for a period of time. I am so happy those years forever gone. Oh, when I was in 20s, my record was 72 hours without real sleeps. It was extremely unhealthy. I warn any young kid not doing it. At least, I will never let my son do it. Coming back home and eating the dinner, I went back to my bedroom to watch the last set of UW Women's Volleyball Team taking CAL's, they won over Golden Bears 3 sets straight, then I fell into sleep for 12 hours until almost 8 am on Saturday morning.

I received e-mail from Rick Steves twice on Wednesday. I watched his show on TV several times a couple of years ago but had never thought about where he lives. My impression was he might be in East Coast. After reading his e-mail and checking his Wikipedia profile, I just realized that he actually lives in Edmonds which is the first town I lived when I moved to US because my ex-wife owned a very neat house there. I still remember that our neighbor had a Husky whom often walked by himself to the Safeway in the plaza by Route 99 near our neighborhood. During that period of time, I often went to downtown Edmonds as well. However, Rick's e-mail was to ask me to support Inslee to be re-elected for next term. I am not interested in State-level competition, why don't I support these guys for my son's sake given both of them are UW alumni?

Patrick's Diary - 10/22/2015

Seahawks did a pretty good job on Thursday Night Football, unfortunately, when I arrived at home, the first half was almost gone. After dinner, I moved up to my bedroom to keep watching and was too tired, so fell into the sleep from time to time. At the end, they almost shut out 49ers.  

In addition to 12 Principles for Economic Analysis, I pulled two Models from Krugman and Well's textbook:

• Production Possibility Frontier
• Efficiency
• Opportunity Cost
• Economic Growth
• Comparative Advantages

To use these two Models, we can reshuffle every industry to be efficient, least opportunity costly and economically growing by taking all comparative advantages. 

By the way, any word I said is my own, so my comments or opinions don't represent any others'.

Patrick's Diary - 10/21/2015

On Tuesday night, my first grade buddy chatted with me on WeChat that he would like me to meet his daughter whom was visiting her boyfriend in Seattle and give her some advices. This led me to drive to University Village yesterday evening because the girl's boyfriend is a student at UW and lives in that area. I saw the girl only once in Beijing when she was probably 11 years old. At that time, I went back there to visit my parents and son, getting a chance to go to my buddy's home. However, I definitely hadn't known how she looked like. Before coming to the Village, I did check on its website to locate a restaurant and preferred one named Eureka. After parking my car, I walked around to look for it but approached a sports bar named Ram next to Apple Store, so decided to buy them dinner there. Waiting at the front door, I saw them coming my way eventually. My buddy ever mentioned me once that his daughter's boyfriend was very tall, what he said was in Chinese "1米9“， which is equivalent to almost 6'3", maybe 6'2 1/2". In my mind, his height was probably similar to my son's. Wow, he was such a tall guy, obviously taller than my son. After sitting down at the table, I asked him in Chinese: "Are you 1.9 meters tall?" His answer proved my estimate: "1.97", which is almost 6'5". Wow, this reminded me what I glanced at one page of  my son's Macroeconomic textbook: "As China Illustrates, there is a positive relationship between a country's rate of long-run economic growth and its average population height." Of course, the boy's parents might be tall, but I bet significant improvement of living standards in China must be a major contributor as well. My son came to live with me at age of 12, so, in his case, he has benefited from American lifestyle, 

The girl is in her senior year at Depauw as I shared. She had cumulated very good working experiences through an internship at a firm in Philadelphia. After almost 4 years on her own in US, she seemed very mature. I gave her some advices based on my experience and promised to look for opportunities for her in Seattle. Her boyfriend is a Computer Science major at UW and most likely will locate a job here. They both love Seattle and in Chinese tradition, as her "Uncle", I would like to help her settle here. Her major is Communication but taking Statistics and Calculus classes as well. I told her that with quantitative skills, it would help her more competitively. For example, she could design a questionnaire for survey by utilizing her statistics knowledge. The challenge for these kids is that they are international students, however, you never know what kind of opportunities would come up. They were both born and raised by quality families in Beijing, but it's always great if they can get a chance to reside in our wonderful city. 

Checking my online banking accounts, I was so happy to see the rent for my rental property deposited on Wednesday. Combining with part of my paycheck directly deposited this morning, I paid the property tax for my primary residence. I am on track to pay off my credit card balance for last cycle on 11/15 without touching savings. 

While paying the property tax, I noticed the photos of both of my properties posted on Snohomish County Treasurer's website. Though they are very common average properties in US, only rich families could own this type of houses in China. However, I should appreciate Chinese economic growth as well because majority of the investments in these two properties I put into came from sales proceeds of two apartments in Beijing when my parents moved to US and shared compensations with her siblings on my mom family's owned property 60 years ago in a very hot spot in downtown Beijing. Though my parents sold the apartments at very low prices back in mid-2000s, it was still a bless. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to buy these two in US.

Presidential Campaign had a piece of news that VP Biden wouldn't pursue Democratic Nomination. This might make their case clearer. 

I just read a piece of sad news on CNN that a man killed two people and wounded two others at a school in Trollhattan, a town near Goteborg. This is a very rare case in Sweden. The masked man used a knife, possible a sword.

Ok, let me pause my campaign but resume tonight because I need to leave home soon. 

Patrick's Diary - 10/20/2015

After seeing Doctor Holmes this morning, I went to work through I-5 Southbound to connect to I-90 East then I-405 South. It might be because of being after 9:00 am, the traffic wasn't as bad as I had expected. 

Naturally, I came back home pretty late and fell into sleep until 10:00 pm when my son called me to ask if he left his earphone for IPhone at home. I just checked, it looked like he did. I will go to UW to buy a dinner for my first grade buddy's daughter. She is a senior at DePauw and came to Seattle to visit her boyfriend at UW. I can drop the earphone at my son's dorm after the dinner. 

I plan to leave home for work in 20 minutes, let's see if I have time to wrap up my diary for yesterday. I have several books for macro/micro economics but want to base on Krugman's to walk through my comprehensive economic plan for my 2016 Presidential Campaign. This is the one my son used for his ECON 201 last quarter, deemed the most updated. 

According to Krugman and his co-writer, Wells that all economic analysis is based on 12 principles:

• Group A: Individual Choices: 
• #1 Choice necessary due to scarcity of resources
• #2 Opportunity Cost
• #3 Marginal decisions
• #4 Incentive-driven to having people exploiting opportunities
• Group B: Interactions of Individual Choices:
• #5 Gains in Trades
• #6 Markets towards Equilibrium
• #7 Resource used efficiently to achieve goals
• #8 Markets to efficiency
• #9 Government interventions to improve welfare
• Group C: Economy-wide interactions
• #10 My spending, your income
• #11 Overall spending out of line of productive capacity from time to time
• #12 Government policy to change spending

Patrick's Diary - 10/19/2015

On the treadmill at gym, I saw a girl wearing a Wilson's jersey in front of me working out. She might try to remind me Seahawks. I am kidding.

Recently, I read Yahoo News everyday because they have been posting a lot of articles about 2015 Presidential Campaign. Postings on Yahoo are much less credible than those on CNN but they are entertaining and I still can get a lot of useful and valid information. 

I read that Biden would announce his decision of jumping into the campaign or not pretty soon. I don't care because I am going to keep promoting myself as an independent. 

Patrick's Diary - 10/18/2015

Watching highlights of several BPL matches, I fell back into sleep until almost 10 am. Stopping by McDonald's to have breakfast, I worked out pretty hard at gym in the following 2 hours: Almost 4 miles on treadmill, 20 minutes on bike and 150 times weightlifting. Dropping the check for October Homeowner Due for my rental property at management office, I was ready to go back home to watch Seahawks' game. Unfortunately, they lost in the minute at home and irritated 69,000 fans at Centurylink Field.  

Sounders' second to the last match in Houston coincided with Seahawks' home game playing Panthers. First of all, it was a much more critical match because Sounders still hadn't locked playoff position. Secondly, soccer is my first sport anyway. Sounders didn't play very well, honestly, but they dodged the loss in the last couple of minutes after Martins caught an opportunity to make an accidental header to tie. They do have a very good chance to beat Real Salt Lake in the regular season finale to advance. 

As I shared, GDP growth is the most positive means to having our national deficits reduced. Two approaches can sum up all components to GDP, the more popular one is spending approach: Consumption + Investment + Government Spending + Net International Trade. Looking at 2016 Federal Budget Proposal, we can tell the receipts will be increased if three of these four grow. 

Ok, I need to leave for the start of the new week pretty soon but will elaborate my campaign tonight. 

Patrick's Diary - 10/17/2015

Watching the only match televised on FSN1, I witnessed Muller's easy touch to score in early morning. As a routine, our family went to Chinese Super Market - Ranch 99 to buy groceries once every three weeks. Dropping my parents there, I drove my son to go to Costco to buy other stuff. We normally go to one of the Szechuan Restaurants in Lynnwood to have lunch after shopping but my son got a bit cold and wanted to go to New Star Restaurant to eat Cantonese Seafood.

The first time I went to this restaurant probably was almost 15 years ago if I remember correctly. It isn't big but always serves great seafoods. Today, we ordered a fish and squared porks. The lady recommended two veggies, which were very delicious. Soup of mixed crab and fish was tasty as well. While eating, I mentioned an article shared by a friend on Wechat, which speculated Mao Zedong's lost son. It wasn't a piece of news, we all heard that story more than 30 years ago. However, I was impressed by that article because the statement was very logical. My dad didn't believe it and I tried to pull that article out for him but the link was deleted with an explanation of its being reported by many readers for its inappropriate contents.

After lunch, we walked out of the restaurant to wait for my parents in the parking lot. New Star is located in Chinatown at the shadow of Downtown Seattle Skyline and I could view the top of Centurylink Field from there as well. We ate everything today, so didn't have any leftover to take home.

My son planned to go back to his dorm later afternoon because he would need to prepare for his midterm of Integral Calculus to be taken next week. The real deal is that he loves campus life now. Before driving him back to him dorm, I cruised on TV to glance college football games being televised on different channels.

It took me much longer time to drive my son back to his dorm this afternoon. First of all, he wanted to get a haircut at a saloon near our house, then I had to drive out of the freeway to go through 15th Ave to UW campus because the message board on I-5 warned two lanes being blocked due to a collision at 130th Street. After dropping him off, I drove back to I-5 and this time, Northbound was also congested. My dad probably was a little bit bored, so he went with me. On the way back home, we exchanged that my son seemed getting onto the right track for his life. 

Exchanging some opinions about educations with one of my dorm mates at CUMT on Wechat, I started watching Huskies Football team taking Oregon Ducks at home. Though Huskies made some great plays, they lost the game at the end. They are young and have a long way to go.

Going through 2016 Federal Budget for the year of 2016 on OMB website, we already told that deficits reductions rely on either decreasing Outlays or increasing Receipts, ideally both. However, increasing receipts refers to more taxes, not only on rich but middle class as well. Will Americans accept it? You rarely hear the word of "Donation" in Sweden because citizens already pay enough taxes but it is such a popular word in US. Contradicting to my comment here, you may read some articles online, which mention that Swedes donate much more compared to global average. I assume that judgement might be from different perspectives from my understandings. If Americans pay more taxes, charities may not exist any more. Is it bad? I don't think so. First, volunteering contributions are substituted by legal obligations, which makes the entire system more productively. Second, non-profit organizations are converted to governmental agencies at which social workers become Federal or State employees who will earn more stable, maybe even higher salaries with full benefits for the whole families. Decreasing Outlays directs to smaller sizes of social programs. This would be backward in the process of development of social systems. In addition to mandatory social programs, we may be able to cut outlays in some other areas anyway. In general, if governments can generate much more receipts, Outlays will even be increased. Managing Outlays and Receipts is still a reactive action. GDP Growth is more proactive on minimizing deficits or even eliminating it.

Patrick's Diary - 10/16/2015

I forgot to upload a clip I filmed on Thursday morning while I was driving on Lake Washington Blvd to dodge the congestion on I-405 after passing the over bridge above I-90. It was a pleasant drive by appreciating that part of Lake Washington.

On Friday, we all had a busy but pleasant working schedule. Our business division hosted an Oktoberfest, which was full of Munich taste. A band was hired to perform on a stage and Root Beer was provided. It's fun. I found an interesting clip on Youtube about this year's event in Munich to share. 

Since our family would go shopping grocery this weekend, my son planned to come home after staying in his dorm three-weekend-in-row. He wanted to have a decent Chinese lunch at one of his favorite restaurants after we would buy the grocery, this had become our family's tradition. Picking him up, we arrived at home close to 6:30 pm. 

Checking out more information about Welfare States, I made a table as following:

Coming back to our 2016 Federal Budget Proposal, I assume our Federal Government is going to use Liberal Approach to manage the entire process. If we adopt more Social Democratic concepts, mechanisms and take its advantages, we most likely will resolve the issues of budget deficits more effectively. 

Patrick's Diary - 10/15/2015

I got up late and need to leave in 20 minutes. Let me briefly update my diary for yesterday.

I surfed online to look for more updated information about Socialism and found one article particularly helpful.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/14/8-questions-you-were-too-embarrassed-to-ask-about-democratic-socialism/

There was another one talking about the development of Socialism over the course of the last several centuries: Utopia vs Scientific and Reformation vs. Revolution. Unfortunately, I am not able to locate it online now.

Though I don't have time to tackle each breakdown of Federal Budget for 2016 posted on the website of OMB, I can show you what they are and deeply analyse this weekend:

Patrick's Diary - 10/14/2015

It's a very busy day yesterday, so I fell into sleep pretty early and got up at 5:00 am. However, I feel pretty energized at this moment and am ready to leave for the office. Before going out on road, I definitely want to finish my diary for Wednesday.

No matter how many real issues were tackled during Democratic Presidential Nomination Debate the night before, it's a huge success because I heard 50 millions viewers watched it. Clinton solidified her leading position in general poll after so many questions on her in the last couple of months, Sanders won every poll online and pulled in millions bucks donations from small voters. I will keep promoting my candidacy in spite of the possibility of no one even reading and watching it. 

Today's topic for my campaign is to disclose my plan to outline a comprehensive solution to resolve national budget deficit by utilizing Socialistic Philosophy, Concepts, Logics and Advantages. My campaign focus on National Economy exclusively and the foundations of my campaign are Economic Theories/Applications and Modern American Socialism. I only have 20 minutes left before I drive my van out of the garage, so I would like to use US Federal Budget for 2016 as an example to introduce my plan briefly:

• Receipt:                   3.5  Trillions
• Outlay:                    4.0  Trillions  

          Deficit:                    0.5  Trillions

• Public Debt:           14.1 Trillions
• Financial Debt:      12,5  Trillions
• GDP:                      18.8 Trillions

My goal is to cut the projected deficit by 50% 250 Billions by increasing the Receipt to 3.65 Trillions and cutting the outlay to 3.9 Trillions. However, it's not always budget cut, if GDP can be increased, Federal Budget will be increased from current projected level accordingly.

Patrick's Diary - 10/13/2015

It is not fun of paying property tax. I just did it for my rental property by E-check on webpage of Snohomish County Treasurer and am going to wait for my paycheck directly deposited to my bank account to pay for my primary residential property next week. Managing cashflow, I am trying to pay everything off including my son's college expenses without touching any savings. I had to pay his tuition for Autumn Quarter by using savings earlier this month but my goal is to recover it by the end of the year. The margin of error is very tight. According to my payment plan, I may be able to pay for his dorm and meals, which was already paid through my credit card, on 11/5 without tapping savings. It's fun of doing this anyway. 

Democratic Presidential Nomination Debate was held on CNN on Tuesday night. It had drawn public attentions for a month. Anderson initiated questions with Gun Control because there had been several deadly shootings in the last several weeks. While every candidate agreed to rigorous background checks on gun buyers, Sanders diverted the question to affordable mental health insurance a little bit. He also raised his opinion of different views on this issue in rural voters from urban voters. My point of view on this is that hunting may be a mandatory activity in life chains, the main issue is beneficiaries in this industry won't give up huge profits. Government must settle this in the middle ground.

Debating on foreign policy is always Clinton's advantage. As former First Lady, Senator of New York and Secretary of State Department, she had been involved in the process deeply. However, current situation in Syria is a hot potato. We want Russians to play a positive role of containing Islamic State but don't want to see them dominating the region. Crisis in Middle East is the most headache globally, my view is to have all powerful nations reach a mutual agreement that the world can't be settled without resolving the problems there first. To achieve this goal, everyone has to work together at current stage. 

I don't hear anyone effectively outlining a clear solution of stopping Climate Change. Honestly, I never believe humans are facing a deadly scenario because so many territories on Earth are still lifeless, so many resources are waiting for humans to explore. However, we must use resources efficiently and cautiously. Everyone must have mindset of energy conservation. 

These politicians are not economists, so voters shouldn't expect them to lay out detail economic plans during this debate. National economy actually is the focus of 2016 Presidential Campaign. Sanders has gained popularities due to his self claimed identity of Socialist. He tried to define Democratic Socialist at the beginning of the debate but failed. Socialism is the next conversion of successful and matured capitalism. It's why Scandinavian nations have advanced to it for decades. However, their successes may not apply to the rest of the world easily because they are homogenous. It is a challenge for these nations if they can maintain their identities and systems while diversifications become more significant nowadays. They may have to modify their systems to accommodate the changes. In United States, we need to bring in Socialistic theories, concepts and logics to cure a great deal of issues Capitalism not being able to tackle. As the most powerful country in the world, I am confident that we have achieved a high level of citizens' moralities and strong form of national economy. Will capable Americans be willing to contribute more to help poor? Will rich families be willing to pay more taxes to help public universities be tuition-free? My family is just average middle class, but if I can make additional gains in my stock trading account, I'd love to pay hefty tax on it without trying to take any advantages of tax benefits. My contributions in the form of Federal Tax Revenue will be flown into infrastructures, educations, Medicare and Social Security. 

Patrick's Diary - 10/12/2015

Coming back from gym at almost midnight, I filmed the clip for the second day of my 2016 Presidential Campaign. First of all, I would like to broadcast that The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economics Prize in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2015 to Professor Angus Deaton at Princeton University for his analysis of Consumption, Poverty and Welfare. Though I hadn't known who the candidates were, I am happy to be on the same page with the Academy. It's so odd that none of the major US media covered this piece of significant news in their headlines. 

As I shared, I am going to utilize modern economic theories to support my campaign rigorously because national economy will eventually be every voter's focus. 

Professor Deaton is not only in Economics but Public Policy. In future, I assume both areas will be intertwined more tightly and influence each other significantly. Academically, both departments will collaborate at different levels. 

Patrick's Diary - 10/11/2015

As planned, I start filming my own clips for my 2016 US Presidential Campaign from today until November, 2016, I am totally independent, an advocate of modern Socialism and even currently disqualified, but very confident to become the most favorite candidate at the end of this election. You may consider that I am crazy and stupid at this moment. 

Getting up close to 8 am, I went to gym to workout. Chatting with my best soccer buddy on Wechat while being on the bike, I recalled a lot of things back in late 80s. 

Coming back home to watch Seahawks' challenging Bengals, I fell into sleep from time to time. During a long period of time, Seahawks had led Bengals with a pretty big margin. However, they lost the game in overtime eventually. 

Toward the end of the weekend, I watched a movie - Blended, actually, I had watched part of it several weeks ago. It's such an entertaining romantic comedy. 

Ok, I am ready for another week to start in several hours. 

Patrick's Diary - 10/10/2015

On Saturday morning, I started the weekend chatting with one of my dorm mates at CUMT who is a civil engineer in Guangzhou. He said he just watched Transformer of which the contents I totally forgot. These super action movies are pretty similar, so it's hard for me to recall all the scenes after watching them. I also talked about workout with another dorm mate whose family currently resides in Toronto but he himself recently went back to Beijing to run business for his Canadian employer, probably, I didn't ask him to elaborate. His daughter is going to graduate a pre-med degree from McGill and applying US medical school. It sounds her daughter's higher educations have cost him a great deal of money. I never spent time to learn about Canadian colleges, so don't quite know about it but do know it ranks pretty high globally. I left a message in our group chat board on Wechat that his daughter will make a lot of money after medical school before I left home for gym.

Stopping by McDonald's to have breakfast, I ran half an hour on treadmill, lift weight 150 times and was on bike 20 minutes. Driving to Safeway to refill my medication this morning, I witnessed a mad man arguing harshly in front of me while I was picking up. I didn't quite understand the situation but could tell that his insurance company wouldn't pay for his medications as he was explained at the counter. 

After lunch, I went back to my bedroom to catch up some college football games. College gameday ran into 6th week. I am still planning to go watching some bowl games in person during Christmas break in December. It depends on how much money it will cost. 

Keep chatting with my classmates at CUMT back in 1980s on Wechat, I shared my political and economic views with them: China should keep pursuing a modern socialism but not the one so called "Chinese Socialism" by their government. I introduced my understanding of Scandinavian Social systems and Swedish Economic Models but warned that those smaller countries' practices might not be applied to other countries. I told them that US is the only country in advanced economy, which doesn't have a comprehensive welfare system but may be much more dynamic than others. A successful Socialism requires people to contribute because the welfare system is built on productivities and higher taxes. Chinese government has required their people to sacrifice in the past almost 70 years, their officials should be the role models themselves. One classmate might run his own businesses in Guangdong whom told me that he learned Chinese taxes were rated the 2nd highest in the world by some international researching institutions. I speculated that the structure of Chinese tax system might be set up ineffectively and allocations of tax revenue might be misplaced. I believe Chinese officials don't understand modern economic models. For example, how to effectively adjust between different components of GDP. Though formula and definition of GDP are simple, they don't know how to arrange them in a complex system. 

Due to a trigger in the last several days, I had checked about one of the houses I used to own 10 years ago. Surprisingly its appreciation after 12 years is only 21% while that of my current house after 6 years ownership is already 23.6%. More luxury houses appreciate less in this area. A house in the same neighborhood we had bought in 2000 before selling it in 2003 in order to buy that larger one might have appreciated 53.8% after 15 years. However, I found all the information I wanted to know on Snohomish County Assessor's website: I have officially given up that ownership 5 years ago and I don't have any obligation on it either. I pulled the following price change line for my current house from Zillow as following:

US Men's National Soccer Team played Mexico in CONCACAF Final at Rose Bowl. Mexicans played better but the match itself was decided within the last several minutes in overtime that Mexico would go to Russia for Confederation Cup in 2017. Former Sounder Yedlin passed a ground ball to have another new sub score to tie before they finally lost. It's an exciting match and there were many enthusiastic fans both at the stadium and in front of TVs at home. I am the latter, of course. 

Patrick's Diary - 10/9/2015

Though it was Friday morning, my plan was not to use toll lane. However, the traffic wasn't too smooth, so I drove onto the toll lane anyway. The message board advised the charge for that moment being $2.50, was better than yesterday. 

Stopping by Burger King to have breakfast, I actually didn't finish it and would eat the leftover in my van for lunch later. By the way, I hadn't seen the charge for my breakfast last Friday on my online banking page as I shared earlier this week. It was apparently an error because eventually it was charged correctly. So, I didn't expect a free breakfast. 

Coming back home, I chatted a little bit with my classmates most of who I haven't seen for 30 years on Wechat. I showed them the dinner my mom made for me by uploading a photo I snapped. 

Falling into sleep until 12:30am, I watched a movie on big screen downstairs. In the last hour, I have been sitting in front of my laptop to reconcile the parking fines Hertz Sweden has charged to my credit card since late August. As I said, the charges look like legit but are very high. 

A new pending charge of 50 bucks was added on my online banking page today, I don't know what it was for and asked Hertz to send me the invoice. I really can't recall any more additional tickets. Only one possibility is left, I will verify my assumption after seeing the invoice from them.

My son stayed in dorm this weekend again, hopefully he will go to workout. I probably will go to gym when it opens at 7:00 am this morning as well. 

Patrick's Diary - 10/8/2015

It's 3:16 am on Friday. Let me wrap up the diary for Thursday and I will catch up for everyday. 

It's a traffic disaster on I-405 South on Thursday morning. I noticed the charge for toll lane bumping up to 4 bucks but took it anyway. After the toll lane ended in Bellevue, I switched to regular lane and approached I-90. Reading the message board, I could tell that a collision at 112th Street was driving a 3 miles backup southbound on I-405. Seeing endless vehicles piled in front of my van, I decided to get onto I-90 East to take some local routes to avoid the helpless congestion. Going through hills and valleys through Bellevue, Newcastle, I got into Renton. Planning to get back onto I-405, I noticed that the traffic was still heavily jammed up. Instead of turning onto freeway, I drove into the other side of the freeway and along Lake Washington to arrive in downtown Renton. Eventually I managed to arrive at the office at 9:00 am. It took me 1 hour and a half to sit down in front of my monitor, which was not bad given this nightmare. 

I hadn't decided to watch NFL Thursday Night Football. After the dinner, I went back to my bedroom to turn on TV. Suddenly I realized that UW Huskies were in Memorial Coliseum to face USC Trojans. At that moment, Trojans were at 4th and 1 with 17 seconds left to the end of first half. They made a field goal to lead 6 to 3 over Huskies. After watching a TD by Huskies in 3rd Quarter, I was too sleepy to keep going, so turned off TV to fall into sleep until 2 hours ago.  

I just read a bunch of chats within my group of classmates I was just connected by my best soccer buddy and joined the conversation. Some of the comments were with mixed feeling: Living standards are improved significantly but environments become worse and people have serious issues of moralities. I said that it needs time. China is the most populous country with the 3rd ranked territories, the issues will have to be resolved by itself. Dominant majority of the populations must rely on their own homeland to become a paradise eventually. I believe they will. However, they need intelligent politicians to lead them to get there as soon as they can. 

Ok, it's already 4:39 am now and becomes a dilemma to me. Should I go to McDonald's to have breakfast and work out at gym or go back to sleep for another 2 hours? 

Patrick's Diary - 10/7/2015

Did I take the toll lane on 10/7? I even can't remember. I probably did because I arrived at the office around 7:30 am. Well, I left well before midday for my mom's bone test in the afternoon.

After eating lunch at home, I drove my mom to Virginia Mason. The test was taken in a big mobile lab in the parking lot. It looked like a big bus with Virginia Mason's logos all over the body of it. The technician was a pretty nice gal and the test was facilitated smoothly. My mom has very serious chronicle bone issues on her legs and waist but she doesn't want to admit it. She always says she is much better than others. 

I hadn't gone to gym for a long time, but still didn't go today. I had spent too much time on other stuff recently, which wasn't good for my body. 

Reading the posts in our alumni's group on Wechat, I actually didn't know any one of them personally except one I brought into this group. He was 2 years junior when we were at China University of Mining & Technology. However, I only saw him once after I left the university almost 30 years ago. It was 2 years ago when I had an offsite conference at Hilton Waterfront in Huntington Beach. He came over to drive me to a very upscale seafood restaurant and we had a very pleasant conversation. Triggered by the photos those alumnus posted, I found one of our soccer team at Department of Mine & Civil Engineering snapped in the playground in 1984. He recognized two players on it. I was in the first row at the far right. My best soccer buddy I mentioned the next in this diary was at the far left. The guy next to me was two years senior than me at the college and an excellent player of bridge. I actually learned a lot of skills from him and played a lot of games with him when I was at school.

His recognition of two teammates triggered me to call one of the guys whom was also born and grew up in Beijing just like me. He was my classmate in the same class of 84-2 Civil Engineering and  my best soccer partner at departmental team and varsity soccer team of CUMT while I played striker for the former and attacking midfielder for the latter and he played right winger. He told me that our classmates had a chat group on Wechat and connected me into it. I had chatted with some of guys and gals until almost 1:00 am. We still felt very close after 30 years. 

Before I called my best soccer buddy, I had called another close buddy at the college who resides in Sydney, Australia but is doing business in China. When I reached him, he was in China but would go back to Sydney the following day. He visited us 3 or 4 years ago and stayed in our house for a couple of nights when he came to States. I took a photo when he had a dinner with my family. My mom and I weren't in but my dad and my son were sitting at the table with him. 

He invited me to his home in Sydney and I do plan to go to Australia I have never gone before. Sure, I probably will go to visit him 2 or 3 years later and several other alumnus living there as he told me. When he visited me, he brought me a sweatshirt with Australian national pride on it. To avoid confusion, I have never worn it in public but always treasure it as a valuable gift from one of my closest friends. 

Patrick's Diary - 10/6/2015

Because I decided to catch up my diary for Monday before driving to work in the morning, I ended up coming back home close to 7:30 pm. I didn't lose anything on TV because there wasn't any televised interesting game though baseball playoff kicked off. 

I did watch CNN news for quite a while while I was eating dinner. Former Minnesota Governor Ventura was interviewed, he is a colorful figure and I never read his book of American Conspiracies that was referred in the interview several times by Lemon, I may grab one to read. Ventura hoped Trump would crash GOP and Sanders would smash Dem because both of them are unconventional. New findings regarding Oregon Shooting were disclosed that killer's mom tweeted a lot about her enthusiasm in guns. 

Because I would need to start early, then take half a day off to drive my mom to Virginia Mason for a bone test, I went to bed early without punching any Chinese in the Alumni Group on WeChat. However, I read several of them talking about going down to the bottom of coal mine as part of practical trainings, which triggered me to just pull a picture on which all dorm mates except one who was taking this picture for us subbed by another classmate from another dorm room were standing in the center of Qufu, Kongzi's hometown. Though our major was civil engineering, we needed to go to a mine in the suburb of this city for practical training in 1986 as well given our school being a mining technological institute. All of us probably were still a couple of months younger than 20 then. I was at the very right. 

Patrick's Diary - 10/5/2015

It's 4:10 am on Wednesday now. I will start early at work because I need to come back home to drive my mom to Virginia Mason for a bone test in the afternoon. 

On Monday morning, I drove through Toll Lane on I-405 and it took much less time on freeway again. The big event would be Seahawks hosting Lions on Monday Night Football. I was lucky to get back home right on time to catch the kickoff at 5:30 pm. I was a little bit tired, especially after drinking a bottle of beer, I started being in and out of naps from time to time., Lions are not very competitive in this season and Seahawks were supposed to be very powerful at home. However, as far as I could tell while I was awake, it seemed a very difficult win at the end. Lynch didn't play, Wilson ran several 1st down by himself but fumbled twice. I recall that he threw a long ball to Kearse for an impressive 1st down, and subsequently threw a receptive touchdown to Baldwin, which was the only one at the night. However, it was a very close game at the end. A wrong call seemed made in 4th Quarter but I didn't catch it because I fell into sleep then. I did catch a second of that scene when a seahawk pushed the ball out of the bottom line in end zone in a highlight after the game. So far, I haven't spent more time to learn about what happened and why the call was wrong. Catching some side conversations, I assumed that it was a fumble leading the ball into end zone and Seahawks shouldn't have tipped it out of the zone, the action was illegal. However, what should they have done to make it legal without losing the ball? Should the player have caught the ball then run out of the end zone? If he had caught the ball but ended up in the end zone, would it have been a safety to lose 2 points? I will find the detail out when I have time.

Oh, I just found this clip on Youtube, it sounded like that Chancellor knocked the ball out to force a fumble but another linebacker shouldn't have tipped it out of the zone, it should have been a foul and Lions should have been awarded 1st and Goal. However, obviously, seahawks didn't realize it was a illegal touching because the player could have just let the ball slide out of the zone. In the clip, we can clearly see the ball being on the track to flying out of the zone by itself. 

Before falling into sleep, I chatted with a guy at CUMT USA Alumni group on Wechat for half an hour. He was enrolled in 1980, though we hadn't known each other until joining this group last week, we belong to the same generation because I was enrolled in 1984. He mentioned a Chinese movie back in 80s I still remembered. “归心似箭” In English Translation, it might be "Desire to Return Desperately". He might use it to describe this group of alumni missing our Alma Mater so much, especially, like us, who have never gone back there for almost 30 years and rarely have any contact with the university in the past 3 decades. 

Patrick's Diary - 10/4/2015

Though this would happen on Monday, I still want to include it in my diary catch-up for Sunday. Chinese Scientist, Youyou Tu, won Nobel Prize for Medicine with two others. It's not unusual for Americans winning in any categories but still a pleasant surprise for Chinese. 

The most cared prize for me is for Economics, I am not sure who are the candidates and what theory will be the winner this year, let's cross finger until next Monday. 

Though I did watch a BPL match in the morning, I totally forget which teams played in it and what the result is because I spent almost entire morning in bed punching Chinese to connect with my alumni at CUMT currently living in the region where I am the liaison. I sent 7 invitations through Wechat and they all accepted to be my contacts. 3 of them are in Bay Area, probably all in high tech industry; 3 are in Seattle: 1 works for Microsoft, another a graduate student at UW, the third I didn't ask but sounded just moving into the area; 1 used to be in Seattle but now in Vancouver. We will be all integrated into The Association of CUMT US Alumin when it is officially registered. 

In late afternoon through the night, I chatted in the group on Wechat with that gal whom might just move in Seattle about the housing prices. She mentioned that houses in Bellevue are so expensive and I agreed that average family hadn't even thought about buying properties in Bellevue and Issaquah 15 years ago. The majority reason for Chinese buying overpriced houses there is for school districts. Later on, the founder of the group joined the conversation because we started talking about K-12 and higher educations. His son is a junior Accounting major at UIUC and scheduled to finish the 4 years studies by the end of junior year, he will pursue Master of Accounting, then take CPA exam. I mentioned to our founder that I even could see his son's comfortable lifestyle at the age of 50 now. My son just kicks off his sophomore year at UW and plans to apply the program of Bachelor of Science in Economics in his Junior year. He will probably try to enroll a PhD in Economics program eventually. So, we had a lot of topics to chat. At the end, our founder was afraid both of us might divert the discussion from the main focus of the group but I thought, higher education is one of three major subjects of our would-be association and our conversions would help alumni expand the discussions. 

My son called me to ask if we would go shopping groceries next Saturday because he would come home if we would, then he could have a big Chinese lunch at one of his favorite restaurants. However, I told him we wouldn't after asking my parents. My son decided to stay in dorm and on campus next weekends. He told me he started his routine by following my recommendation: Studying Integral Calculus, Intermediate Econ, enjoying drama class and burning 200 calories everyday. It's why he didn't want to break his routine.

While chatting on wechat, I did follow Sounders hosting Galaxy. A passing error made them be behind before Barrett tied the match as a super sub. He went wild to rush to the fans' stand to jump up. 1 point is not good enough for Sounders but it was an exciting ending of the home match. 

UW Huskies hosted two Southern Californian teams both in Men's and Women's matches. I didn't catch the result of the first Women's match because of Sounders' but did watch the final 30 minutes in regulation and extended overtime. Huskies' second goal was made by a world class free kick. Eventually, UCLA won by the winning goal of the 3rd PK in this match. I saw Huskies' coach had kept complaining to someone in the field through the match. I guess something must be wrong in his eyes. UCLA has a long history of soccer development in West Coast, I can tell their influences. 

Ok, I am about to drive on road, I-405 toll lane can have me manage the time of commute more effectively. During this hour, the charge may be the highest though.