Family Circle

We just got back from a ski trip to Lake Tahoe this evening, a couple minutes before 9:00PM when the new year count down happened in Time Square. The ski at Heavenly was great, and Emily also enjoyed her ski lesson and “graduated” to go on green line.

As a family tradition, we made our 2007-2008 news letter at
http://www.xiesland.net/family2007. You are welcome to check it out.

Wish everyone a happy and successful 2008!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year !

One of our classmates at Tsinghua University has invented “Touch and Talk Pen” (TTPen), and produced a series of educational materials (for learning Chinese and English). The TTPen incorporated an optical sensor which can recognize the characters and text in the books, and can speak the word, sing songs and engage children for an interactive play, just with the TTPen and TTPen-enabled books (which has special pattern dots in the background of pages).

The TTPen has been a huge success in China and is being used widely in school. For the first time we have make the TTPen and books available in North American. You may check out at our website:
http://www.ttpen.com

I have made a list of car brands, all I could think of. Please feel free to add in the Comments…
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Hino
Mitsuoka
Tommy Keira
Hyundai
Honda
Toyota
Lexus
Saab
Saturn
Subaru
HongQi
Ford
Chevy
BMW
Volkswagen
Scion
Mercedes-Benz
Volvo
Land Rover
Mazda
Acura
Ferrari
Lamburghini
Audi
Chrysler
Lincoln
Mustang
Pontiac
ASL
Porche
Nissan
Infiniti
Jaguar
Bentley
Buick
Jeep
Isuzu
Avanti
Mini
Mercury
Mitsubishi
Chevrolet
Cadillac
Koenigsegg
Lancia
LDV
Carterham
Mangusta
Ginetta
Alfa Romeo
Aston Martin
Bugatti
Carver
Citroen
Daewoo
Daihatsu
Dodge
Daimlerchrysler
Eagle
Fiat
Ginetta
Holden
Lotus
Marcos
MG
Maserati
McLaren
Micro
Morgan
Navistar
Nissan
Oldsmobile
Opel
Packard
Panoz Auto
Perodua
Peugeot
Plymouth
Proton
Rolls Royce
Renault
Rover
Seat
Shelby
Skoda
Smart
Suzuki
Tatra
TVR
Vauxhall
Ultima
Hummer

We just picked up our new 2008 BMW 328i Couple yesterday (color: Sparkling Graphite Metallic) . We ordered it about 6 weeks ago, and then it was custom-built in Germany and delivered to us over the past weekend.

And here are some of photos for sharing.

This year I volunteered to work on Murwood PTA website redesign. After about two months of planning, redesigning and testing, it is officially live on http://www.murwoodpta.org. The user interface and navigation has been improved a lot, and I am looking forward to making new functional improvements.

This was for reflections, but I turned it in a bit late. Well this is it!
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I can make a difference,
You can make one too,
If you run out and play ‘stead of
stayin’ home all day,
Conservation of energy will come true!

I live in such a lovely place,
With not that much pollution.
But if I go to somewhere else,
it seems,
The pollution will have no solution.

I can make a difference,
You can make one too,
If you take a small walk or
ride a small bus,
The air’d be clean and all would be cool!

If each person lends a hand, gives some help,
The world will be so much cleaner.
The smoke and smog
will decrease,
And asthmatics will get better.

I can make a difference,
You can make one too,
If you ride in your bike ‘stead of
Ride in a car,
There’ll be less smog and dusty ‘Achoos’!

The Earth is such a great place to live,
And not such a good place to waste,
Do you want your hometown,
Devoured by smoke?
I don’t, everything’ll turn to paste!

I can make a difference,
You can make one too,
You can throw away your mash,
but not apples &grass,
Worms will have a job to do!

By David Xie

[2007.10.10] I suddenly realize why I strangely feel Paris like my
‘hometown’ when I first arrived. To some degree, Paris
does look like Shanghai thirty years ago when I was
there with my Grandparents. Or as people say, Shanghai
is east Paris. The street, and air, the crowded small
buildings…But now Shanghai has changed a lot and I
never felt familiar when I visited there. However here
at Paris those remote memories came back.

Yesterday is also a very tired day. I went to bed at
around 3am. So today I slept until almost 1pm.

Today’s target is Versille, far away in the southeast
of Paris. I took Metro and RER, went through some nice
suburban house region. The houses are very close to
each other, nice and clean and lots of flowers and
plants and trees. The overall tune is very soft.

Versille is Louise King’s palace. It is a grand
building group, with a grand huge park. I don’t know
what else to describe big. Anyway it is just very big.
I think taking picture is a meaningless action,
because no picutre can cover a single scene. The
difference is seeing a movie in wide screen theater
and seeing it on paper booklet. For example, normally
a park will use bushes to make a maze, it is using
French Wu Tong to make it. The palace is on the hill
top and the garden is going down hill. So the King can
see the garden from the palace. I guess they must
visit the garden by horse.

Inside the palace it is overwhelmingly decorated from
ceiling to floor. On every wall there is a huge
painting of the king or queen or Jesus. On the
ceilings there are knights and angles and venus.
Everywhere is gold or marble. I don’t understand why
the king and queen need such large and tall rooms.
Compare to Versille, the forbidden city in Beijing is
like a motel comparing to a 5 star hotel. You have to
be here and see it yourself.

After that I got tired again, because there is just
simply lots lots of walking. Not like in China, here
no one sits or eats in the park or in the palace. I
came back to hotel, got a big plate of salad from the
hotel’s salad bar, and ate an instant noodel I
brought. From what I have seen, normal french
resteraunts are very similar.

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference. In the
morning I will go to the meeting. In the afternoon my
goal is to visit the top shopping center. I found that
French woman’s coats are very elegant. They only wear
black or brown. I should get one too from this fashion
capital of the world.

[2007.10.09] How are you and david and emily? Is the Corolla fixed
yet? How is the BMW? I really miss you! We should find
some time to travel together in Europe for two months.

My talk in the morning went very well. I made the
story very interesting and they are very impressed.
Many people talked to me after my talk and told me my
work is very creative. First of all, it’s a big honor
to have an oral presentation. And not every speaker
can talk well. For example, the presenter before me
talked at least 5 minutes overtime. When it is my
turn, the timer rang exactly at the second I finished
my last word - that’s the last surprise I gave to the
audience (And of course it also surprised me).

This afternoon I visited Saint Chapelle and Notre
Dame. Again, it is stunning and breathtaking and I’m
speechless. I hope you can all see it with me. My
camera ran out of battery after I visited Saint
Chapelle, so I don’t have any picture for Notre Dame
and Musee d’Orsay that I visited at night. But it made
my view seeing more enjoyable. I can see through my
eyes, not through camera.

Near Notre Dame by the river, there is an area with
many many resteraunts lining along very narrow
streets, including some Chinese resteraunts, and many
people. The price is about 12+euro each entry. Chairs
and tables are outside and inside, which makes the
atmosphere very relaxing. The price on the menu has
already included tax and service fees, so there is no
additional charge when you pay the bill. But I didn’t
eat there because there is a big dinner waiting for me
at musee d’Orsay .

The conference reserved the entire musee d’Orsay for
the night from 7:30. We first visited the collections
in the museum. The most famous ones are Monet’s and
Vegou’s. The buiding itself is also quite a piece of
work - how can a railway station be made so beautiful?

After I finished seeing all the paintings, it is
alreay 9:30. The ‘big dinner’ waiting for me is
actually cocktail party: wine + finger foods. I took a
glass of red wine (I guess I should have one because
it is France). And the little finger foods are
delicious.

I got back with some Japanese students. At the hotel I
met Professor Luke Lee and he told me his wallet just
got stollen on the Metro! Be careful!

To be continued…

[2007.10.08] This is already the second day in Paris. Yesterday I
arrive in the afternoon and register for the
conference at 4pm, I went on visit musee Rourve,
walked all the way through Champe-Essyel street, took
a look at the Arc de Tromph, took train to Eiffel
tower, ate dinner at a local cafe, and came back at
11pm. They are all very beautiful and stunning, but
I’m really exauted, since I didn’t get much sleep
during the 14 hour flight. Starting from the way to
the tower I slept everytime I blinked.

So the lesson is you shouldn’t try to get too much
good things at a time.

What attract me most is not the historical buildings,
but the atmosphere here among the small streets and
people. There are not many people on the street, but
not as in US, where there is none; and not as in
China… They all drive almost the same low profile
small europ cars, no Japanese cars, a few BMW, and
quite some bikes. Nothing shinny, nothing fancy, short
buildings, narrow streets. But very clean and neat.
People talk in French, but when I speak English, they
can understand and reply in simple English. They look
very same in my eyes. I have a very weired feeling
that I wish it was my hometown.

Today I attended the meeting and found that it is very
interesting. I can understand most materials and
discuss with many poster presenters. There are about
1000 paticipants from 30 countris. I need to practice
my talk this afternoon. There will be at least 300
people listening to my talk and I should respect this
opportunity. But tonight I will pick a nice
resteraunt.

Yesterday’s food is not at all attractive: French
onion soup, French fries, chicken, beef steak, or
salmon - same as America. And a big problem is that I
can’t read the menu. But today’s lunch at the meeting
is nice, especially the apetizer and dissert,
beautiful and tasty, no idea what I was eating. The
main entre is salmon, same as yesterday’s lunch.