A productive and entertaining weekend

Friday was very hot but the temperature dropped significantly on Saturday morning. I watched two English Premier League matches and witnessed Manchester United to win their third matches in this reason. After lunch, I took a little bit rest, then went to Lynnwood High School to practice soccer for an hour, then observed a teens' football game on its formal turf at the back of the school. For the rest of the day, I started writing Day One - En Route Kastrup of my new book and finished a quarter of what I planned to write for this first chapter. 

Weather kept cool on Sunday morning, I watched Manchester City winning over West Ham 3 to 1. The City's players worked very well together. Their efficient short passes were similar to what Barcelona's players could make several years ago. Not going to work out today, I slept a little bit before Sounders' match started. Timbers crashed Sounders in the first half. As I tweeted, only keeping loyalty to myself ensured me to enjoy this Sunday afternoon by watching a wonder offense. Sounders caught up a little bit at Timbers' mercy in the second half. It's not too bad they didn't lose 10 goals in this match. 

At one point of time, my son came into my bedroom to announce that he had caught how Logical Games worked of LSAT and sounded very confident in getting a great score in October, 2017. He had thoroughly reviewed 320 pages. My projection on him is to get 170 at LSAT and bump his GPA up to 3.3, then he will go to Georgetown Law Center in Fall, 2018, though I prefer him staying with UW Law School, then I don't need to sell the townhouse but just simply give it to him. His life will be very comfortable after graduating with a JD/MBA at Washington. Of course, if he can score 175 and improve GPA to 3.5, he may go to Yale. Who knows?

Until half an hour ago, I had been writing another quarter of Day One - En Route Kastrup and had finished 12 pages with 5,000 words over this weekend. As I shared, my plan is to write this book with 200,000 words. If I can keep fine-tuning 2,000 words per night, which isn't too unrealistic, then I may finish the entire book by Christmas. I have been moved by the stories while writing, I hope you will too. 

I need to fall into sleep as quickly as possible because I plan to be on road at 5AM tomorrow, then I will come back early to drive my son to Everett Clinic to have his right eyeball checked because of that white dot. However, he said it apparently shrank a lot but still wanted to use this opportunity to have his eyes checked, which he hadn't it done for a year.

Leavenworth

It's not a perfect road trip over last weekend, I lost my watch I just bought the monday before the last after my Jury Duty at Everett Municipal Court. I can't remember where I could forget to pick the watch up in the morning. It might be in Walla Walla or Leavenworth. 

However, it was a pleasant trip anyway. In addition to all Periscope live videos I had shared in Walla Walla, I really enjoyed the night spent in Leavenworth. Having a super Munich Lager, I drank it all and felt so cool. The only consequence was to sleep until 2:30 in the morning after going back to the hotel room. 

German Wursts were huge but I ate both all as well. My son ordered Rahm, a German speciality. The waitress laughed at him how he still could order a chocolate cake afterwards. However, he is a big eater. To accommodate him, I had Vanilla Ice Cream. 

After leaving Leavenworth, we went through Stevens Pass. Since the road was relatively rough, I put Gopro on to make a clip. 

We don't have a big plan for this summer, so just took two short road trips in the last two months for my son's summer break. One was to go to Oregon in July, and another was this one to cruising through East Washington. Before my son goes back to his dorm to start his Junior Year in the final week in September, we will take another weekend road trip to Olympic Peninsula. My son told me yesterday he already wanted to go back to school to enjoy campus life... Oh, too bad, he just came into my reading room to tell me a white spot embedded on his right eyeball with which he didn't know what it was. I will have to make a doctor appointment for him tomorrow. 

My Plan

As I shared, my son will go to law school in 2018. I hope he can make his dream of going to Georgetown to be true but still think UW Law School being his best choice. However, if he wants to jump onto national stage at young ages, Georgetown is more promising for sure.

In addition to my job, I do have several plans for myself. Though I have had some issues since early 2000 after settling in Seattle in late 1990s, I have been working out regularly and keeping diets relatively healthy in the last several years. According to life expectancy for my generation, I still expect to live until 85. If I can retire at 60, I plan to start my fourth career of my life until 80 years old if I can keep up with my current energy level. 

So, what will my fourth career be? 

Closely related to my current profession, my first plan is to finish PhD in Economics at age of 63 I started 25 years ago but never progressed, then become a professor while publishing my own books and papers; 

My alternative plan in this regard is to get my CFA I started in 2000 and resumed in 2010 but never finished charted before my retirement, then become a full time stock trader by running my own investment LLC while playing an active role in this industry in terms of presenting, educating and communicating my theories and practices in conferences;

I believe being a writer is always my natural talent. This plan can be implemented today and I will become a full time professional after ten years. As you already read, I had posted a memoir type of story of Sometime in Scandinavia in the past several years but never finished. I have been thinking in the last two months about to start enriching it into a 200, 000 words novel and even wrote a Table of Content several weeks ago. Tonight, after taking a long rest since this afternoon, I finished Prologue. Since I can't publish a book, which has been posted in public domain, I changed its name a little bit. The main stream of the story will still be driving through Scandinavian Peninsula clockwise, but 90% of the contents will cover almost entire of 1990s and the past 10 years (Don't worry, it won't relate to anyone or anything specifically in my regular daily life because the scenes will be mainly in Europe) and it will be much more fictional. I am shooting for publishing it by the end of October, hopefully you will buy one to read. Who knows can't it be turned a best-seller and moved onto big screen because it won't be only about romance? You will learn much more genres from this book...

Table of Content

Prologue

Day 1:             En Route Kastrup

Day 2:             On Road to Nyborg

Day 3:             Across Denmark

Day 4:             At the Sea

Day 5:             Amazing Bergen

Day 6:             Artistic Alesund

Day 7:             Through Atlantic Ocean Road

Day 8:             Cool Trondheim

Day 9:             Romantic Asker

Day 10:          Relaxed Karlstad

Day 11:          Magnificent Uppsala Cathedral

Day 12:          Harmonious Lake Malaren

Day 13:          Tearful Sergels Torg

Day 14:          Forever Campus in heart

Day 15:          Driving along Vattern

Day 16:          Home Goteborg I

Day 17:          Home Goteborg II

Day 18:          Home Goteborg III

Day 19:          The Same Lilla Torg

Day 20:          Sad Eyes of Little Mermaid

Day 21:          Leaving Kastrup

Epilogue

In Copenhagen, you may want to drink Carlsberg but in Stockholm, I tended to order Eriksberg. Every time, when the leading male character of my book was sitting by Kungsgatan drinking Eriksberg, he always expected her to come over to pull another chair and apologized: "Sorry, I am late", then argued: "But this is the only time I am." Yes, that was the only time she was. 

My focus in the next five years

As I shared that my son made his decision of going to law school, so his future is almost determined. According to his progresses academically, I project he should be able to be admitted to one of the top 40 law schools. In addition to five targets of Yale, Duke, Georgetown, UW and UNC, I will recommend him to apply five more to sum up to Ten when he starts his application process in 2017.

The cost of JD is one of the most expensive amongst all academic degrees, it ranges from 180K to 300K including everything. In the next five years, my focus as a father is to make sure that he won't shoulder the heavy student loan to force him to desperately pursue big bucks right after the graduation. 

First of all, I hope the housing market won't go down, then my rental townhouse will cover my son even he goes to Yale. I either can borrow home equity loan or sell it. According to the most current Zestimate, it may be sold at 275K next summer and could be at 300K in 2020 per my extrapolation when I possibly need to sell it. Anyway, I bought this townhouse in 2006 at the peak, couldn't be happier that it is even little bit profitable now. 

Though relying on this rental property exclusively will have covered all of my son's law school cost already, to make my own life easier, I will focus on investment in the next five years to make sure to maximize the returns. Since I created SeaPower Index in May, it has increased by 9% at the market close of last Friday. As a small investor, the performance might be too mediocre. But assuming you are running a 1 million dollars' index fund as a wealthy individual investor, you have pocketed 90,000 bucks less than 3 months. Simply annualizing the return by 4 times, your family's total return for the year will be 360K. Not everyone could build up a million dollars' portfolio, me neither, but the investing concept is the same and this SeaPower index fund is very conservative with low risks. If you are willing to take more risks, you don't need to invest so much money. 

Most of these stocks' prices in this index almost hit 50 weeks' high now, so I expect to see a little bit of retreats in the next month or so. However, toward the end of the year, most of them will hit new high's. I don't own any of them in my portfolio but do like ALK. I actually sold one of my holdings in my portfolio before its earning release and expect its price to go down another 10% before October. Then, I will buy back to shoot for 75% gain by 12/31/2016. 

The reason I like ALK is that its P/E is down below 10 and domestic travel will increase significantly given the downward of international travels. We should see tourism in US to surge during the holiday season. 

As I mentioned to many of my friends, being an average middle class family, everyone of us has to make the choice amongst all consumptions because we are not able to buy everything we want. It's why I am so happy to spend only 10,000 bucks to buy this 2009 model Mazda-5 with 55,000 miles on it. I plan to drive it for eight years. It will be a big test for it when we will be on a cross country road trip in next summer: Starting from Bothell to Chapel Hill, then along Atlantic Coast to Key West. Coming back home through Southern States but won't go to Southern Cal this time. 

If my son can get scholarship all law schools generally offer, that will be great. However, I don't rely on it because my parents were always frugal to themselves to satisfy my needs when I was young, why can't I do it for my son? Even the majority of future proceeds from my rental townhouse came from my parents originally because they sold their apartments in Beijing at deep discounts compared to today's prices when they immigrated to US 9 years ago, so I feel very normally to use it to pay for my son's cost in the next several years. Of course, if your parents didn't treat you so generously, you have the reasons not to do it for your children.It's fair and cultures are different. 

However, one crucial factor I didn't mention is that I am always able to have a meaningful full time job no matter when and where, which can ensure me to plan everything else calmly. 

My son's motivation

My son Ricky has been motivated by his goal of going to law school since the the beginning of the summer break. He first made the decision of pursuing major in English and minor in Philosophy, both would help him become a great law school student. Then, per my suggestion, he started studying and practicing 5 pages of Kaplan LSAT reference book every day. The total pages of this book are 1,000 and so far, he has finished almost 200 pages. According to his schedule, he will complete it thoroughly by the end of February in 2017 at the latest. Before taking LSAT in October, he will have 7 months to intensively improve his testing skills. His targeted score is 170 and I am confident in him. Meanwhile, he has been working out four hours everyday because he realizes that a strong body will ensure him to be energized to achieve his goal. 

Checking out top 50 law schools, I outlined the targets for him:

No. 1 target: Yale. It's very difficult for him to be admitted but you never know, he will apply it anyway. A JD from Yale will almost guarantee his success in future. 

No. 2 target: Duke. He may have 30% chance to be admitted and I really hope he can enroll their program. A JD from Duke may bring him into a big law firm in East Coast after graduation immediately. 

No. 3 target: Georgetown. He has a big chance to be admitted and he really wants to go there because he seems very interested in the circle in DC. A JD from Georgetown will send him into Washington politics at young ages.

No. 4 target: University of Washington. It's his alma mater and has the most economic value for him. Though its law school ranks much lower than Georgetown, due to its domination and popularity in Northwest and its competitiveness amongst Washington State residents, it may be even more difficult to be admitted. A JD from Washington will help him become a rising political star from his home State and keep his personal life to be easier. 

No. 5 target: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He should be able to get this one as a Out-of-state applicant. A JD from UNC should help him start building his political career in that State. The reason I recommend him to go there other than other States is that his maternal uncle's family is there, so he will have an extended family there if he can't live in Washington State any more. 

He has been watching both Parties' National Conventions enthusiastically and paying attention to Clinton and Trump with full interests. He seems very serious in pursuing a public servant's career eventually. I hope Mr. Ricky He will become Secretary of State one day since he won't be qualified of being elected as President. 

During the lunch today, I recommended him a plan of 3 main focus in his last two years of undergraduate studies:

• Awarded a Bachelor of Arts in English/Philosophy in May, 2018 with GPA of 3.5;
• Score 170 of LSAT in October, 2017;
• Build up athletic body by keeping intensive workout everyday. 

In addition, he should take care of other two things in his life if possible:

• Attend more social activities to enrich public experiences;
• Find a girlfriend who really fits into his life. 

Let's see how he will do, I am very interested in observing his progresses. However, supporting his goal of going to law school is not to expect him to make big bucks but earn all academic credentials in his 20s. I don't really mind if he will only make 50K as a public servant after graduating a JD at Yale. 

Patrick's Diary - 7/13/2016

Counting the days away from this long weekend,
Booking the room prior to my fiftieth birthday.
Planning a night right before heading to Ashland,
Targeting a hotel in Bend to check in on Friday.
Thinking about to appreciate the ocean again,
Changing mind to switch to east of Interstate,
Going to Oregon Coast once a year for real fun,
Shifting to inland mountains this July to dance.
Receiving notifications for Centennial four times,
Selecting second to the last show on Sunday night.
Expecting to be back before its kickoff by hours,
Hoping to catch more in this spectacular event.
Reading a tweet to learn Sounders at Centurylink,
Enjoying five goals to beat Dallas during the week.

Patrick's Diary - 7/12/2016

Leaving the office three hours after twelve o'clock,
Approaching the dealership twenty minutes to five.
Missing the entrance so much by almost one mile,
Taking a U-turn in time before at the service desk.
In the exhibition room awaiting technician to check,
In the show sections observing new models to shine,

At the coffee ATM making two cups of vanilla latte,
Outside the sliding door finding my wagon to hook.
Free car wash being a lifetime wonderful benefit,
Headlight replacement being one time at no charge,

Regular maintenance to be taken care of by Dennis.
Four hours workout becoming my son's daily event,
Five pages review becoming everyday LSAT routine,
One Hundred Seventy to send him to top twenties.