We spent a week during New Year time in Reno/Tahoe/Truckee area, went skiing everyday. Emily is a very fast skier that David has hard time to catch up her. Junyu can ski any green lines too.

Emily took her ski lesson at Boreal. She learned very fast, and pass one level every day. She can now run down “steep” green line quite well.

It was a sunny day to hit the slope.

Yet another day, it was snow-storm with wild wind howling the mountains. It felt like in Alaska or North Pole, and the sandy snow seemed to cut through our faces. This photo shows a snow-storm is just starting to come in. But we still continued to ski for that day, and it felt very special. We had to put “chain” to drive down Mt. Rose.

Everyone, except David and Yuhua, on this photo was beginners. After a couple of days, everyone can ski down the green lines easily.

After 4.5 year study at UC Berkeley/UCSF, Junyu graduated from her Ph.D program in Bioengineering, officially on Dec 19, 2008.

For Thanksgiving, our friends and family went to a resort in Windsor (near Santa Rosa) for a couple days. We visited the Charles M. Schulz, marveled at the Sonoma Coast Beach, one of the deadliest in USA, and hiked around the Russian River.Here are some pics:

Our Family at lake side along a trail

My Sister & I by the River

The Kids on the Hike

What’s That?

Reflection II

The Bridge to Our secret Island

Finally at the Beach! Lots of birds play with people.

Be Careful, It’s dangerous! The waves at Bodega Bay.

At the Peanuts Charles M. Schulz Museum

Look At That!

This picture was made completely of small pictures from Snoopy comic books, all pieced together! Tens of thousands pieces!

I entered in the CACC (Chinese American Cooperation Council) Chinese school first annual Speech Contest. I performed this speech in front of the Chinese teachers, and I got a 3rd place. The thing that really brought me down was the time. It had to be from 3 min. to 4 min., but I was so excited and nervous that I started to speak quite quickly and got a 2 min. 40 sec. But I still did a wonderful job in writing with some help from my parents, in my opinion.

我参加了CACC 中文学校的演讲比赛。我在老师前面读了我的演讲，拿了三等奖。 最大的问题就是时间。 本来演讲要是从三分钟到四分钟的， 但是我很着急， 也终于讲熟了， 我就说了很快，讲了两份四十秒。 ：（ 我还是觉得自己写的很好，当然有我的爸爸妈妈的帮助了。

CLICK THE SMILEY FACE FOR THE SPEECH/恩笑脸看演讲

While hurricanes wipe across American eastern states every year, the Tsunami hits the Wall Street right now is truly once-in-a-century, or the first time ever in American history. Call it meltdown, collapse, demise, or simply dead, disappearing…
and the latest casualty, Washington Mutual, is among the largest banks in US, and the biggest bank failure in the history ever. Personally, I liked Washington Mutual for its convenience, and free wire transfer which I did just a couple of days ago.

Let’s list the names here, as they will no longer exist in reality, but only in story…
Countrywide, Bear Sterns, Indy Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Washington Mutual…

all big names and once-respected companies, and AIG was among the Dow Jones! Gone with them are sky-high virtual wealth that American once owned. Were they ever the real thing, or just scam?

While people at the Wall Street are in panic like the twin tower is falling, and people in Washington are screaming “too big to fail”, the ordinary people are forced to pay for it, with $700,000,000,000.00 US dollars (Man, count the zeros, we do not see such huge number in daily life). Why the bailout? “You got to save the financial industry!” as they said. We, the ordinary people, are hooked either bailout or not - pick one: this poison or the other poison.

Someone called it: “privatize the profit and socialize the loss”. The crop of so-called financial elites and the greedy American corp executes plotted and directed the real-life drama that eclipsed the Hollywood’s exaggeration.

With the $700000000000.00 on the table again, who will benefit from it? They would not be shy of profiting from it. And after all the mess, they will start over and do it again. And the root cause of problems? who cares?

“Too big to fail?” While some banks disappear, other ones are gulping up - Bank Of American took Countrywide and Merrill Lynch; JP Morgan took Bear Sterns and Washington Mutual. Ain’t we creating even bigger financial giants? The giant that is too big to fail?

We had a summer vacation visiting Olympic National Park, Seattle, and Victoria area. We were not able to go to Beijing Olympics, but we did visit the Olympic park (at least the same name), watched the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony in a Seattle hotel.

Here are the photos from the trip

It was made for commemoration of the Seattle World Fair in 1962. It is 500 feet tall. It’s the Space Needle!

There were many ideas for the structure of the building. Some were balloons, some were wacky, some were weird, some were about the same as the one today. The first idea came from a man called Edward E. Carlson drew his interpretation of the building while drinking coffee in a coffee house! There were many spherical ideas until one person changed the ball into the UFO.

They had set the deadline for starting to build the building for June of 1990, but it passed. It then went to September, November, and finally December. Only a year and a half left!

Then they bought the land, which was hard because of the fact that many people thought that their idea was rubbish or that it would not work. But with the successes of Germany and Japan, they soon agreed. So Edward and his group bought the land for a pretty small price. But there were only 13 months until the fair!

They filled a 30 feet by 120 feet hole with cement, which was one of the largest cement filling attempts of the time. They built it quite quickly, and soon it was done, just in time for the fair.

Today, it is still a landmark, a symbol of Seattle. I loved it, and it was the thing that I was the most looking forward to. The height of the sculpture was awesome. We also bought some souvenirs in the SpaceBase, the gift shop. We also looked at the SkyCity revolving restaurant, which was both appealing and amazing. I had thought that it would be an entire moving level, but it turned out only to be a static room with a moving ring near the windows that the customers would sit. Unfortunately, we did not eat there.

To me, I think the shape is very sturdy and straight, and also flowing a beautiful. It’s height amazes me, and the structure is also very detailed.

The Skyline of Seattle

Emily looking through the telescope on the O-Deck

The View of the Experience Music Project from the Space Needle

On August 1st, I went to see the USA Women’s volleyball team play scrimmage practice.

Little could be heard over the blaring music and the many chatting people. The many, many people there. The stadium, the Haas Pavilion at Berkeley, was nearly jam-packed with the fans of the US Womens’ Volleyball team playing scrimmage half-on-half. The team was led by the Chinese legend “Jenny” Lang Ping, otherwise known as the Iron Hammer. She had led the Chinese to many World Championships and even some Olympic medals. It was said that when she spiked, it was so powerful and so fast that there was very little chance that the opponent could capture it. Therefore, her fist would come down like a hammer, hence the name.

It was soon 5:00. It was scheduled to start. But instead of playing immediately, they started with a set of running around, stretching, practice hitting, etc. With just that, it took up thirty minutes of the time. Then, finally, they started to play. The ball flew from left to right, here to there. Their scores were very close. There were two men up there too, teachers, to help the team that was losing.

During time-outs, they would throw some mini-volleyballs around for the fans to catch. It seemed that they were ignoring us, for they only threw a couple at our side and a lot at their side.

The US volleyball team would go to Beijing the next day, so This was their last scrimmage. There were some mistakes and some awesome hits, and they are truly very great. The players were:Ogonna Nnamani, Danielle Scott-Arruda, Tayyiba Haneef-Park, Lindsey Berg, Stacy Sykora, Nicole Davis, Heather Bown, Jennifer Joines, Kim Glass, Robyn Ah Mow-Santos, Kim Willoughby, Logan Tome, Cassie Busse, and Tracy Stalls. They are averaged about 6ft0in, an they are all very good. Some, like Robyn Ah Mow-Santos, have already gone to the Olympics on the team many times. Likewise, some are coming for the first time.

In my opinion, I thought that the tallest, Tayyiba Haneef-Park, was the best. She served well, spiked fast, blocked steady, and one time she, when the ball was about to go out-of-bounds, she kicked it at the last moment with a flying gymnastics-soccer kick that made the ball fly back to safety. Everybody was cheering after that.

It was truly a great time. I got signatures in the end, and Mom even got Lang Ping’s. Quite a line and quite a squeeze, I must admit, but it was worth it. I had a fantastic time and a great memory to last, hopefully, forever.

Here is a pic of some of the members of the team(click for larger version):

On July 16th, my family and I all went to Calistoga, embedded in North Wine Country. It was beautiful there, and when we looked out the windows of our car, there were rows and rows and even more rows of grape vines. Grape vines in a plain, grape vines on a hill, grape vines everywhere! It really is Wine Country and it lives up to its name. We had lots of fun there, going to the Mountain Home Ranch, where we stayed during the trip. We dwelled in the cabin “Grandma”, with “Grandpa” at its side. There was a massive orange tree right outside our door, and a little cherry-like fruit tree down the narrow paved path. The food was delicious, especially the breakfast fruit. They were truly at its freshest, sweetest point.
We also went canoeing on the Russian River, and many other places. Here are some of the pictures that we took there:

Russian River

We canoed across the Russian River, for 10 miles and 4.5 hours. The scenery was very beautiful, and there were many fish, small islands, trees and campers we encountered during the trip.

On an island beach amidst the river

Ready to take off from the island!

The beautiful view from the Russian River.

Mountain Home Ranch

We stayed here, at the Mtn. Home Ranch, and had a barbeque, played pingpong, ate, and explored the library here. Pretty big, with two pools, a small gazebo, and quite a number of rooms, it was more like a cabin-and-cabin kind than a hotel. No big giant building, no casino. Just a small, quaint, ranch.

Emily feeding the big white horse

Me feeding the brown horse

Petrified Forest

In the Petrified Forest, almost all the trees you see are stone. After a couple hundred million years ago, Mt. St. Helena exploded, and all of its volcanic ash fell on this area. Then the water came, and flushed away the volcanic ash, and slowly replacing the wood into stone and quartz, cell by cell. They then became the giants you see today there.

Emily and I with the petrified Mama Bear

The Queen is a very large petrified tree. It is the one on the ground, fallen, and not the one where the sign is posted on.

Sterling Vineyards

We went to a vineyard of Wine Country. It is on the top of a small hill, so that you have to ride a gondola to get to the factory. It is built in the style of Greek architecture, and There are many gigantic barreles and fermentation chambers. They gave lots of info there. I didn’t even have the thought that wine would take that much time and effort!

The Sterling Vineyard factory, on top of a hill.

The view from a gondola going to the factory.

On the deck of the building.

Wine tasting at Sterling.

The vineyards at Sterling.

LiShui is a magical place. It is where my Dad was born, where he would help his dad on the farm. The scenery is beautiful, with the graceful lakes and quaint little towns. I have been there a number of times, and I loved it. I loved to chase the chickens about the cobblestone tracks. Every time I went there was a great, fun memory.

LiShui is composed of one city, seven counties, among one of the counties made up of the Shè group. They all have towns, and they all are lovely. Among the towns is XiaoXi, or ‘little river’. That is where my dad was born. They all speak LiShuihua - Language of LiShui – instead of Mandarin. They taught me a little, like how to say ‘I am a LiShui person’.

LiShui is about the same size as the Bay Area. It is on the south-western side of the ZheJiang province and it tilts up from the south-western side to the north-eastern side, where the mountains are plentiful. There are not as many people in LiShui as in the Bay Area, though. The lower population density offers more land for building, farming, etc.

LiShui has a great big amount of trees. In fact, it has gotten the nickname “The Foliage Ocean of ZheJiang.” Every time I went there, I always marveled at the great green mountains. It also has much running water, so that many waterpower stations can be built. It 600 current waterpower stations has a potential waterpower of 2M Kilowatts. Then, LiShui will have more than enough energy to keep people going.

LiShui also has a ton of precious rocks and minerals, such as gold, silver, lead, zinc, etc. The 500 mines full of these rocks and minerals give it national acclaim. They use the abundant trees, rocks, and minerals to make traditional handiworks, like wooden toys, small electronics, gold pens, etc. They are very famous throughout ZheJiang and beyond.

LiShui is also a great farming capital. It makes teas, edible fungi, vegetables, and nuts, anything you can imagine. Foods such as Xiang Gu Mushrooms, bamboo shoots, etc. are known throughout ZheJiang.

As you can see, Lishui is a wonderful place in scenery and farming, and its trees and lakes only add to the charm. It has been a wonderful experience for me, from seeing my Dad’s old house to picking oranges from an orange tree. Its scenery is amazing, and I hope you will go there sometime, too!

David Xie
7/25/2008