Fun in My Life

Visited Acadia in Maine last weekends. On our way back came across a Chow Mein restaurant named Chow Maine

Trying out the World’s Strongest Coffee & sunset lighting in New London

1. Phil wore a pink hat the other day. The next day, I wore a pink T-shirt in response and asked him, “Do you think if my shirt is braggable?” “Yes, it’s very braggable. I am sincerely jealous.” He joked. “Thank you. I really enjoy your sincere jealousy.” I joked back.

2. I encouraged Vishal to propose to his girlfriend and joked with him, “I wrote a number of proposals during PhD. I can definitely give you some tips for your marriage proposal if needed…”

3. Corey proposed to Sophie last year and she said yes. The next day I saw Corey, I asked him, “Do you still enjoy yourself when you are still available at least on paper?” (No marriage certificate yet.)

4. Peter invited me to his house to play table games. His wife, Elizabeth, works in a hospital and told me the hospital is busiest in April. I was like, “Really? Why? Because of the tax return?”

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The chosen one is being chosen… (near Rockport). #NEOWISE

1.I watched a Youtube video. The host summitted Rocky Mountain and joked that bears were super active in the Spring. Therefore the local governments only allow hikers grouped of more than four to get into mountain in Spring. They wanna make sure the bears got a full meal, not just an appetizer..

2.I watched another Youtube video, George Harrison auditioned for John Lennon on a bus to join the Beatles. Someone commented on the video like, “Did that bus driver know that he was driving a huge piece of history?”

3.Corey, Annahis and I were having lunch together. I brought one lettuce as my salad and one green pepper to add a little bit variety for the salad..

4.The company moved early this year. We had to give up all the monitors in the old place. Annahis was concerned and asked Brian, “What would happen to all the monitors?” I was like, “They will be sent to a farm in Maine and live there happily for ever…”

5.Chat with Atahar at work. Fun.

1. Elton John performed the song of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” with Kiki Dee on Youtube. Someone commented like, “Any female to Elton: I can’t even I tried…”  (He is homosexual)

2. Max was our intern last year but came back for a second term. Annahis asked me if I was excited. I thought about it and asked Max, “Are you coming back full time or part time?” “Part time,” Max said. “OK then, I think I am partially excited.” I told Annahis.

3. It came to me that I could say “I am alcoholly thirsty” when I wanna drink, which is kinda fun.

4. I chatted with Vishal on Skype for work. Fun.

Visited Table Rock, Dixville NH yesterday. Definitely breath taking.

1. Brian C, John and I went out jogging during lunch. Brian said he needed to change really quick. I asked, “How quick? As quick as John’s sex?”

2. Anahis said her parents would like to bury their bodies after death. Shreya thought it was a waste of land. I agreed and joked like, “Anahis, can I suggest your parents bury themselves vertically instead of horizontally?”

3. Brian C is very eloquent. I joked with him like, “Hey Brian, I like the way you talk. You sound like you know what you are talking about…”

4. Red Sox played World Series against LA dodger last year. On Oct 26th, the two teams played 18 innings and Red Sox lost. It was the longest game in world series in term of innings and made many records in MLB history for its lengthy process. The next day, ESPN website claimed the game to be the longest loss in Red Rox history…

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Visited Smoky Mountains the weekend before the last. Totally unreal synchronous fire flies! In Absolute Awe! The meaning of my life has been temporarily fulfilled. Met many amazing animals too! So much fun!

1. Jeff’s daughter was coming to Boston from Texas for holiday. She asked Jeff what she could bring as gift. Jeff was not sure. I was like, “You can ask her to bring some gas…” (gas is way cheaper in Texas.)

2. Claire, the beer committee captain, emailed us asking who would like to choose the beer for next order.” Corey said he would like to do it if nobody else would like to lobby for their libation. I was like, “Ordering beer is huge responsibility. People will judge based on the beer I chose. Too risky for my reputation. I hereby decide to judge Corey instead of being judged…”

3. Corey mentioned a movie which is about another movie. Manish was like, “Because meta-data is data about data, that movie should be a ‘meta-movie'”

4. The Art of Computer Programming is a long but classic book in programming written by a legendary professor. It was actually Bill Gates that wrote its preface, in which he said: “You should definitely send me a résumé if you can read the whole thing…”

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Took my very first boat in life to see the foliage during fall. Totally in awe..

1. John wore turtle neck shirt to work and I told him Steve Jobs liked to do the same. He asked me why I did not do so. I joked with him by saying, “I don’t have the over-confidence..”

2. I paid a visit to the dentist’s and overheard one customer representative say, “I am losing my mind”, because she couldn’t remember where she placed some stuff. One minute later she found the stuff and I told her, “I am glad you found your mind…”

3. Moham’s head phone’s microphone was not working, but the ear pieces were. I told him, “I think it is suggesting you speak less and listen more..”

4. We hired someone with a name Sandy couldn’t pronounce. She complained about it. I was like, “We should put in the job description that ‘Candidate should have a name easy to pronounce. A candidate named Sam or John is a plus..'”

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A house Albert Einstein lived for 20 years

1. Will said my jokes were not funny. I was not happy. Therefore I asked Anahis for a favor, “Anahis, can you tell Will his jokes are not funny?” She did. And I was happy.

2. At the end of Will’s internship, people went out for lunch together. I asked him, “Will, tell us what have you learned from us, especially from me?”

3. We were watching the penalty shoot out between Denmark and England. I joked with people, “I like watching penalty shoot out. I enjoy seeing people under pressure…” John joked back saying, “You can be a good boss..”

4. David was from Britain. I wore England’s jersey on the day of world cup game between England and Croatia to give David emotional support.

Meanwhile, I joked with Rishi like, “You should cheer for England too. India used to be part of Britain.” Vishal explained radically like, “No, they were just their slaves…”

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Meteor Shower on the ocean.#100 days old BBQ party of Lipin’s baby 

1. Will and Sameera walked towards me in the hall way. I formed fake a gun using my hand and joked to shoot them twice. Will pretended to get shot but Sammera appeared as if nothing had happened. I questioned Sameera like, “What happened to you? You just got shot. I shot twice. ” Will explained for Sameera like, “You are a terrible shooter and twice were both on me.”

2. I visited the zoo a few years ago, saw an elephant sucking dirt from the ground using his nose and spraying the dirt on his back. My friends asked why the elephant was doing that. I was like, “Maybe he is trying to get himself dirty and keep people away from riding on them?”

3. I was at Shaochen’s graduation ceremony a few years ago and happened to sit between a lady and her daughter, named Sara. For some reason the lady was trying to hook me up with her daughter and firstly asked me, “Are you single?” I went, “Yes.” The lady kept asking, “Are you gay?” I went, “No.” All of a sudden, she introduced me to her daughter, “Sara, this is Barton. Barton, this is Sara..”

(For more about this lady, please click my post on 2015.12.27 )

4. (The punch line of this piece has to be delivered in Chinese)

去年我和去一个聚会吃饭，遇到一个中国妹子叫Luna。我突然问她，”Luna，你是不是姓’撸’?”

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Washed Jerry the other days, which reminded me of many good times we shared in the past 5.5 years.

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1. We were having work lunch and Christine teased me by staring at my food as if she was gonna eat it. I was totally freaked out, “Come on, Christine, you are making my food very uncomfortable!”

2. Montana and Christine told me a cheesy pick up line by performing. Christine pretended to be a guy asking Montana, “Hey are you a vegetable?” Montana went, “No, why?” Christine hit the cheesy pick up line like, “because you look CU(TE)cumber..”

3. Christine asked me which previous intern did I miss the most. I was like, “Come on. It’s like ask me who I should save first if my girlfriend and my mum both drop in the water.” Montana went, “You should save your mum.” I joked like, “which was why I still don’t have girlfriend.”

4.Christine told a joke. I teased her like, “OMG, Christine your joke is so funny, I almost missed it…”

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Sameera was testing a phone app. For some reason I saw a hammer on her desk and got totally amazed by how she tested the phone app…

1. I bought a condo and talked to an insurance lady for insurance premium. She asked me about the approximate value of the belongings in my condo. I thought about it and told her, “Around $10,000.” She was like, “Oh, that means you are still single…”

2. We were having lunch and one lady had a strong and correct opinion about something. Some guy joked like, “Don’t we miss those days when women are still properties!?”

3. We went out for lunch. I recommended a restaurant and told people my reputation was on the line. Jason joked like, “If we don’t like it, you give us your paycheck.” I was like, “My reputation was invaluable but still not worth my paycheck…”

4. I went snowboarding at Killington 10 days ago and air b&b in a house. I boiled some Chinese food and joked with people that whoever said I was good looking could take one piece.

Since I had to leave early, Baozi teased me like, “Hey the good looking guy is leaving!” I was like, “Hold on for a second”, took out the phone, open the voice recorder app and told her, “Say it again. I need to keep the evidence…”

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John showed me a protein bar he has been eating the other day. No B.S. … (I looked it up and the company claimed B.S. means Bad Stuff..)

1. We were having happy hour and drinking. People told me I should try find girls from bars. I disagreed like, “It is of high probability that a girl found at bar is alcoholic. I wanna find a girl in the library.”

They couldn’t help laughing. I was like, “I am not good at drinking. So I need to pick my fight..”

2. I was at an Alumni Club’s event and Joan, the president, asked me, “Mingwu, I heard you were very capable. Come and help us.” I was so confused, “I am capable?” She continued like, “Yes, Ze and Tianqi said you knew how to play and were very good at having fun…”

3. Wenfei and I were discussing about making money. She told me she was good at things that did not make money. I was like, “Like spending money?”

4. I was at an event and the host talked to people like, “I am glad you sign up, show up and stand up for the cause.”

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I went snowboarding with friends and stayed in an Air BNB house. One of the bed room had a bath tub…

1. The company was packing to move and Sandy told people, “If you have anything that is breakable, make sure they are bubble-packed.” I told her, “Sandy, my heart is breakable.”

2. We were having lunch and discussing about different food styles in China, such as Sichuan Style, Hunan Style and Cantonese Style. Jason asked me, “What style of food can your mum make?” I was like, “Home style..”

3. I took an elevator to 12nd floor. One lady pressed the 11th floor’s button and asked me if the office she was looking for was on 11th. I told her, “Actually it’s on 12nd.” and joke with her like, “Are you those people who pressed all the floors without actually going out?”

4. Tianqi told me she needed to ask her dad for money for the down payment of a house. I suggested her like, “You can spend hundreds of dollars buying your dad a gift and invest on your dad. If the investment works out, you will have tens of thousands of dollars in return just in a few weeks..”

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Fun “No Evil Monkey” cups for drinks: “See No Evils”, “Say No Evils” and “Hear No Evils”

1. We were having lunch and Christine told people, “Oh, I am full.” I joked with her like, “That’s OK， Christine. It’s OK to be fool..”

(Unfortunately I have to explain the punch line to Claire.. 😦 )

2. Claire was gonna visit China for a business trip. I gave her a hug and asked her to forward the hug to China. She told me she was gonna hug the security guy the first thing she landed in China.

3. Suzy just got married last week. I hugged her and told her “to have a good marriage”..

4. (Sorry, this punch line has to be delivered in Chinese)

我和几个朋友去东北餐馆吃饭，要点韭菜盒子，我怕不够分就问服务员：“你家的韭菜盒子多大的啊？”服务员说，“是Jia（1) Chang(2)的。” 我就懵逼地问，“是加长的，还是家常的啊？”

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I went snowboarding the other day and took a ski area transit truck to transport between different sites. On the rail of the truck said this…

1. I told people I was gonna take a cosmetic surgery. They looked at my face and joked with me like, “A lot seems to need to be done…”

2. Suzy was unable to find the mail package she was expecting and asked me, “Barton, if you are a mail package, where would you hide?” I was like, “I’ve no idea, but if it’s a male package I would wait in the men’s room until it shows up…”

3. A bunch of my college’s alumni went out for dinner with another friend, Lorenzo. He asked us, “What is the name of your university?” I joked with him like, “It’s called the best university in China…”

4. I live in Beacon Hill now and Zhongyun suggested me write an autobiography named “The Ghost on Beacon Hill”.

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Be Hoppy, obviously this beer is at least partially made from hop

1.1 Sandy had a stiff neck the other day because of not sleeping well the night before. She asked me to massage her neck. I joked with her like, “How can you not sleep well? You have been practicing sleeping for (long pause) 50 years?” (I definitely don’t wanna over estimate a lady’s age.)

1.2 She was like, “Come on! 61 years! for crying that loud…”

2. Sandy told people a story of her colleague caught abusing the company’s credit card and added that that was why she always kept the receipts to cover her ass, “Just C! Y! A! Cover! Your! Ass!”

3. Suzy and I shopped beer for the company’s happy hour the other day. And we bought Old Engine Oil just for my curiosity~

1.1 Jason was waiting for the pot boiling the water in the kitchen for his tea. I joked with him by saying, “Jason, you should stare at the pot without blinking. It will make it happen quicker. It’s science. Only PhD knows…”

1.2 Later that day, Jason called me Dr. Seuss… (google Dr. Seuss if no idea who he is.)

2.1 We went out for lunch and Suzy took out the company credit card and paid the bill. I joked with her like, “Suzy, the way you paid the bill is so sexy…” She joked back like, “Barton, you will find a woman like that and you will be all set…”

2.2 During that lunch, Joe told us whenever he thought of his kids, he felt happy. I was like, “Please let me think of your kids. I wanna feel happy too.”

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It’s OK to be a little Shellfish… Saw this in a restaurant in Duke’s Seafood & Chowder Seattle

1.1 I was reading a book about public speaking and it quoted a statistics saying there are more people scared of public speaking than death…

1.2 Jerry Seinfeld commented on this point like, “That means to the average person, if you have to go a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy…”

2. We went out for lunch. I wore a good looking but not very warm coat. Shreya told me she didn’t think the coat was good enough for the cold weather. I was like, “Yeah, I am trying to be cool…”

3. I was playing Uno with friends. At very beginning of the game, I joked with people, “I need to get cleared with the rules of Uno: can people swear during Uno?”

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Powell’s books store in Portland OR, which claim itself to be the biggest new & used book store in the world.

1. I was looking at an open source course and one of the course’s prerequisites is high confusion threshold…

2. We went out for Dim Sum, one type of Chinese food. Because all the dishes are not easy to eat using only hands, I joked with Tridiv, my Indian colleague, that this Chinese restaurant is not Indian friendly..

3. I went on a training and the trainer asked us what the company should do to meet the customers’ needs. I joked like, “We probably need better customers~”

4. Sandy is Ravi’s assistant and one day she joked with people by saying, “Ravi is fashionable, smart and happens to be my boss…”

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I visited LA for NIPS 2017, one of the top three AI conferences.

1.1 In one workshop, Feifei Li told people it’s more harmful to be lonely than be smoking and therefore “it’s better off to smoke with friends…”

1.2 In one workshop concerning healcare, one speaker said, “I am at the age that people would normally collecting ICD9 code…” (ICD9 code is the hospital code system for different diseases.)

1.3 After the conference I took a shuttle to the airport. The driver asked people which airline we were taking, so that she can figure out which terminal to stop. One lady told the driver like, “I am planning to take a cab at the airport…” Visit the airport to catch a cab? Totally makes sense…

2. We were having lunch and someone mis-pronounce Suzy’s name as Sushi… And I was like, “Someone needs to be named Woshabi..”

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At the reception of NIPS, Michael Jordan, a legendary AI pioneer and Berkeley U Professor (center) and his band “The Imposteriors” gave an awesome gig. All the band members are researchers, lectures or professors in statistics. So cool!!

1.1 Sandy is my colleague at my Mum’s age and my adopted mum at work.. She is very funny, social and every thing. She is a friend of every body and joked with people that the train driver won’t leave without her, because the driver is her friend..

1.2 However the truth is she had to run from time to time to catch the train, twisted her knee and had to take a surgery one day.. I joked with her that, “Hi Sandy, you have to pace yourself even though you are fast..”

1.3 Sandy told us she did not work on train, because there were so many crazy people in the train and she had to take care of those mental…

2. Tridiv is my colleague working on the programing. We’ve got a group meeting the other day and he told people his hobby is coding.. which I thought sucks and was quite funny.

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Jack’s GF was in CA and I +1-ed his company team’s new year party. The view was surreal!

1. I reviewed a paper and two of potential reviewer’s decisions are “Reject the Paper” and “Strongly Reject the Paper…”

2. One of Sandy’s previous colleagues visited. She was so happy to see him and told people he is her boyfriend. I asked her how many boyfriends did she have. She told me she had multiple and he was her favorite…

3. I saw Christine Gee in the kitchen and said Hi. It caught her all of a sudden and she couldn’t help screaming “Jees”, which was of exact the same pronunciation of her last name’s plural. From then on, I called her Jees..

4. Jixiang placed the sensor on the top of hot tea to introduce temperature increase to test the sensor. Srik called it “Tea Test”… (T test is a well-known test in Statistics)

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Even extremely busy last weekend (Nov 12nd), I still started snowboarding for the season. Super fun and relaxing!

1. Jason saw me working on my yellow paged lab note and kidded me like, “The lab note made you look so scientific..” Because he had marketing background, I joked with him like, “Yes, I am marketing myself. I learned something from you..”

2. I was at a meeting and the host asked if people knew why we need to collaborate? Someone answered, “Because sometimes people need to collaborate to know they have a shitty idea..”

3. Yi’ou told us she got married because she likes men. I joked with her like, “Well, there is a difference between to like men and to like a man..”

4. Annand just got a son and his wife asked him to shave his beard before giving him the permission to kiss his son, because it would hurt. I joked with Annand like, “She can also suggests you stay away from your son..”

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My second compensation of patent royalty fee. Good enough to pay a lot of parking tickets!!

1. Luisa is my colleague who is waiting for her BF to propose. I asked her if her BF knew she was waiting. She told me, “Yeah, I told him the size of my finger..”

2.1 Laura likes to tell jokes, but is not confident about her jokes. Whenever right after she tells a joke, she always looks at people’s eyes and told them, “it’s a joke…”

2.2 Unfortunately Laura quit the job and decided to move to Nashville with her husband. Before she left, she talked to me seriously like, “You, make a better sensor.” I joked back like, “You, make a better joke!”

3.1  Christine wore a big scarf the other day and used it cover her upper body. I met her in the office and joked with her like, “Hey Christine, nice curtain…”

3.2 Tridiv couldn’t help laughing and joking with Christine by saying she was windows..

3.3 I comforted Christine like, “Don’t worry Christine. You are not Windows. You are Linux..”

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A place named World’s End near Boston..

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Without any pressure from Tridiv, my colleague, he is specially featured in this post.

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1. Christine asked me to feature her in my blog, which I did in last post. But I told her I would feature Tridiv one post after her, so that Tridiv’s will always be the most updated. Tridiv was happy, but Christine was like, “That’s OK. There will always be a longer history between me and Barton then…”

2. One lady was trying to motivate people to attend one event on Toast Master Club. She listed all benefits of attending the events and added like, “Plus, I will be there, which I know may or may not be incentives for you guys…”

3.1 I told my colleagues that I attended a wedding two weeks ago, which had no Bouquet toss. I told people that made it very difficult for me to identify single ladies…

3.2 I joked with people that, I need a single lady detector…

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I ordered Sake in one Japanese restaurant. It was served in two cups, one in the other, both full of Sake. People need to finish the drink from both cups.

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Because of the strong insistance of Christine Gee, my colleague at work, she is featured for this post in my blog… 😦

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1. I attended Pei’s wedding with four other friends, who are all married females. Five married women and me, one unspeakable story..

1.1 In the beginning of the wedding ceremony, the rabbi talked to Pei and Ben, her husband, like, “Thank you for coming to your wedding. We can’t come here without you..”

1.2 Ben made a speech during the wedding and claimed the wedding day to be his Pay/Pei Day..

1.3 Linjuan was among 4 friends who joined me. She was pregnant but for a moment she couldn’t get non-alcohol drinks. I was like, “This wedding is so not pregnant women friendly..”

I visited WI to meet friends last Week and AirBNBed in Hopi and Dick’s house. They are at my grand-father’s age.

1. I saw a microscope in Hopi’s house. Hopi told me she couldn’t use it anymore, because her eyes are becoming weaker and weaker. I joked with her like, “Is it why you are still keeping it?”

2. Hopi and Dick have a 16-year-old dog, which is very old for a dog. They told me they had to give it drugs for dementia. I thought about it and was like, “I might need it too…”

3. I handed my phone to Hopi so that she can type in her Facebook ID. She couldn’t do it because her weak eyes and told me the screen was too small for her. I joked like, “I am sorry. I only have a phone for young people..”

4. My friends and I visited dairy cow expo. We sat at a table with a bag left by people who sat there before us. Ten minutes later the bag’s owner came to pick it up and complimented us like, “Thanks! Nobody in WI takes stuff that don’t belong them.” I joked like, “True. But I almost gave the bag to somebody else…”

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Got this fridge magnet at Madison WI’ airport. WI is a farming state. This is probably coming from a rap released in 1992, “Baby Got Back”. One of the lyrics is “I like big butts and cannot lie…”

1. Philips Andover site has a small cafeteria, which only sells prepackaged sandwich. People called it a glorified vending machine…

2. I told Jason I was going to an organic farm to help slaughter chicken. After I came back, he asked me, “Did you get home with chicken feather?”

3. I joked with people in the kitchen about marriage and suggested John be more ambitious to try another wife. John was like, “She is my second wife…”

4. Anand’s wife was gonna labor for a baby the next day and I gave my best wishes to Anand like, “Have a good baby, man!”

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Second time Russell Peters Live! So hilarious..

1. Vicent is one of my colleagues in Netherland. He emailed us saying he was coming to Boston On Oct 2nd and sent another email saying he just forgot that he needed to get married on that date… I joked with him like, “I guess the first secret for successful marriage is, to remember the wedding date?”

2. We had a lady be a subject to collect respiration data. After a few hours of study, she did really well and we complimented her as a good subject for respiration. I was like, “Obviously you have been practicing breathing for this study in your whole life…”

3. Sandy asked me to do something and I did it. The next day she talked to me like, “Thanks, you are doing good, “but followed up like, “but remember, you are good, I am better…”

4. One lady named Mee came to the club and introduced herself like, “Hello, I am Mee (Me)…”, which is probably the most meaningful nonsense I have ever heard..

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Saw this crabby crab in Faneuil Hall

Selected Photos from my last month’s visit of the farm Kate and Joe worked on and owned by Ryan and Kara.

Part of the Farm

The other part of the farm

Growing the mushroom!

Rasberry

BlueBerry

Kate is milking the Goat

Goats

Goat Milk

Pigs

Pigs

Carrot (I guess..

Green Onion

Cherry Tomoato

Tomato

Bee Box

Chicken To Be Slaughtered

Chicken To Be Slaughtered

1.1 Marc took a one-week vacation. After coming back, he hosted a meeting, in which I joked with him by asking, “Do you wanna know how we were doing without you last week?”

1.2 “You guys were doing great,” he answered, “Interestingly I had a great time too without checking any emails or anything.” I pondered it aloud like, “So, we both have a better life without each other…”

2. Sandy was an interesting lady at my mum’s age at work. We got along very well and told people that I was her adopted son and she was my Mum Sandy.

2.1 Aware of me being single, she suggested me like, “Don’t wait for the perfect woman. Perfect women don’t exist.” I joked with her like, “No, they exist. You are perfect.” She was like, “Thanks, I am almost perfect, but not perfect…”

2.2 Sandy took a vacation and told people before leaving like, “If you guys need me to do anything, …” and I continued her sentence by joking like, “…, wait..”

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Solar Eclipse behind the cloud. #Thanks to the filters I bought compulsively a few years ago…

I visited Melissa and her husband’s new house for house warming.

1. My workplace is downstairs of Melissa’s. I joked with people that I used to work on her upstairs and then got demoted..

2. Melissa is from Taiwan. She told me they have Taipei, Tainan, Taidong, Taixi and Taizhong literally meaning the north, south, east, west and center of Taiwan. I was like, in case you guys were running out of names for cities, you can use northeast, southeast, northwest, southwest of Taiwan..

Last Friday, I ran a beer mile, AKA to drink a beer and run a quarter mile for four beers.. Here is for our first beer…

3. I told people the beer mile is gonna be on my resume..

4. Before the beer mile, Carly told me she was probably unable to do the beer mile as well as she did in college, because, based on her, back then she was alcoholic…

I joked with her like, what made you think you are not alcoholic now? …

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A list of books I read since last update..

89. Autonomy And Rigid Character – David Shapiro 90%

88. Humans of New York – Brandon Stanthon 95%

87. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow – Yuval Harari 95%

86. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – Yuval Harari 95%

85. Harry Potter 2,3 -J. K. Rowling 90%

84. The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work – Carol Kinsey Goman 95%

83. Netflixed: The Epic Battle for America’s Eyeballs – Gina Keating 80%

82. The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business – Clayton M. Christensen 70%

81. It’s Not the How or the What but the Who: Succeed by Surrounding Yourself with the Best – Claudio Fernández-Aráoz 75%

(Here is a list of books written in English I read since 2011)

1. We went out for lunch to celebrate Jeffery’s internship closure. By mistake, the waitress switched the food between Gabe and Fi. Before they switched it back, Gabe apologized to Fi like, “I hope you don’t mind I take a small piece of your food.” Fi was like, “Oh, don’t worry, I licked all of yours..”

2. Sandy told people her husband was a jerk in high school. I was like, “So I still have a chance to find a girlfriend, since I am also a jerk..”

3.1 We have one male and one female dummies in the office for hospital utility experiment. When they arrived, they were all naked. So Derek and Suzy brought clothes from home to put them on…

For a while, for the female dummy, we don’t have pants for her, so we get legs dressed in a jacket..

3.2 Marc, a guy colleague, had to carry the female dummy across the business streets of Boston to a collaborator the other day and received all kinds of attention from the public…

We joked about it in a meeting and I was like, “The real question is, who is gonna carry her back..”

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Saw a lady with this cute Minion bag the other day near downtown crossing. She proudly told me she got it from Staple and it was the last in the store!

Kate was my house mate in Michigan. She is working in an amazing organic farm in Vermont. I took the pleasure of visiting her and her BF Joe and worked on the farm for one day last Saturday.

1. In the morning we slaughtered the chicken and some chicken pooped after they died. Joe said people did it too. I was like, “So, we should make sure to poop before we die, so that it won’t be too embarrassing…”

2.1 We later separated viscera from the slaughtered chicken body. Meagan separated the heart from one slaughtered chicken and found some deposit of fat on the heart. She was like, “I am so concerned with the health of this chicken. He may have a heart disease…”

2.2 I was like, “Don’t worry. I am sure he will die for another reason..”

3. Since it is an organic farm, they used people’s defecation as fertilizer and placed all human’s defecation on one corner of the farm. Kate told me some farm visitors accidentally walked into that corner but had totally no idea last year. Those visitors came back earlier this year. I pretended to be those visitors talking to people living on the farm like, “Hey, I met your crap last year…”

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I brought some beer to the farm and the farm owner’s son was definitely enjoying it!

1. I asked Ryan where Gabe was and I needed him. Ryan told me Gabe needed to be needed. I continued like, “Gabe is needy to be in need.”

2. Srik told me in Indian English the meaning of “Can you take my stepney from my Dickey” means “Can you replace my tire from my truck?”… I was in awe…

3. We were having a meeting and Srik asked Guoshuai where a picture on his widnows desktop computer from. Guoshuai said it was from Utah. I was like, “It is from microsoft.”

4. One of my papers was cited by a paper of a really cool title, “Physics Cannot be Disputed..”

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A cloudy evening on Charles River #OhYeahVersionOfPostProcessing

1. I had dinner with Yiqun and his friend. His friend told me his adviser loved deriving all kinds of math equations for his class and told people proudly that Electrical Engineering was pretty mathy…

2.1 Jingyi finished her internship last week and I wrote an email to invite people for a lunch to see her off like, “Hi All, let’s have lunch tomorrow (Thursday) at XXX to celebrate Jingyi’s survival in our team…”

2.2 During the lunch Ryan ordered a whole bowl of rice. I was like, “Ryan, you are pretty ricy..”

2.3 I bought Jingyi a retirement card and circled it around in the company to celebrate her closure of the internship…

1. We went out for lunch and I saw a scar on Suzy’s neck. I asked her, “What’s going on with the scar?” Did someone try to kill you?”

Koreen was like, “Yeah, I tried to kill her once but failed. There were some hard feelings right after that, but we made it up after a few weeks. Now we are still friends..”

2. We were having lunch and Jixiang said he believed pork did a better job making people feel full than chicken. I totally agreed like, “I agree. If one guy eats a pig and another guy eats a chicken, the one who eats a pig will probably feel fuller..”

3. Jason would like his elder son to learn Chinese, but his son would like to learn Greek. So he showed his son the facts that all his toys were made in China and all Chinese food was made in China. Eventually his son became interested in learning Chinese. I joked with Jason that he manipulated his son, but Jason claimed his innocency saying his son made his own decision totally on his own.

4. I was making a coffee, said hi to Derek and burnt my hand. I told Derek I will never do it again. Derek was like, “Never burn your hand?” I was like, “Never say hi to you..”

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Here is the right way to sell ice cream..

1. We were thinking about starting an NGO called “Support for Hunger”, asking people to donate money, getting all the money and eventually changing our names to “Hunger”..

2. I watched an opera named The Wicked. Someone would like to know which of the two people was the witch and asked, “Which is witch?”

3. We were having lunch and Jingyi said the pulled pork bung was too greasy. I spent 5 seconds trying to make a joke using grease and Greece but failed..

4. Minions totally stole the thunder..

1. I watched a video on Youtube. One guy made a fancy video to sell his used car made in 1997. At the end, it rolls out the following words slowly, “Buy my car. It needs your love … and maybe some paint..”

2. Shreya spent one week vacation in Cape Cod. I asked her what did she do. She told me, “We did nothing. We did a lot of nothings…

3. Srik told me he had a high school friend, who told people his dad was a banker. People did not take him serious. A few years later, people realized he meant his dad owned a bank..

4. We were discussing about tattoo and someone asked what if a guy tattooed his wife’s name, say, Andrea on his arm and got divorced. Brian said, “He can tattoo two more words and make it ‘I hate Andrea’…”

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Photos taken by my drone at Martha’s Vineyard. The longest distance of drone: 5000 meters. The maximum of the drone: 500 meters. Amazing for a civilian drone..

1.1 Koreen was not happy with one collaborator and asked Marc,” Can you let me know the best way to say someone is a crap?”

1.2 I interrupted like,” You can say,’ I think you may be a crap’..”

2. Annand told people he took a beer out of a bar and drank it unconsciously while driving the other day. I was like,” You are drinving, man. You are drinking and driving…”

3. We were having happy hours and Heather was drinking with us. Suzy said she didn’t know Heather drink. Heather was like, “Oh, I have pretended not drinking.” I joked like, “You have done a great job until today…”

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Huge wine Koreen bought her family last year..

1. From time to time I asked Suzy about suggestions about girls. One day I wore a new shirt and she said she liked it. I joked with her like, “The real question is: will other girls like it?”

2. Koreen asked Claire what activities she would do in the weekends. Claire joked like, “I don’t do activities…”

3. I watched a commercial which claimed Rule No 1. of road trip: driver is the DJ. Sounds about right.

4. Annand said he was a guinea pig for a study in some experiment. I looked at him and joked like, “No, man. You may be just a pig…”

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A circuit carpet I saw a few weeks ago in an EE exhibition. Not quite artistic. Probably made by a nerd who tried really hard to be artistic..

1.I was at a toast master club meeting and Xinyi told a story of successfully predicting her friend’s BF’s proposal. Xinyi’s friend even asked her BF, “Xinyi predicted you are gonna proposing to me. Is it true?” Her BF became so disappointed and mad that he threw the proposing ring at her and said, “That bitch (Xinyi) didn’t even know me!”

2. Someone was asked a question of “What would you not give up for a one million dollar check?” I interrupted like, ‘A ten million dollar check?”

3.1 I was super allergic to pollen in the past few weeks and found the building screen board casting the pollen report just as the weather report in China board casting air pollution situation..

3.2. Joe suggested a medicine to me but also mentioned his allergy to pollen became much better after marriage. In the end, he still told me, “It is cheaper to buy the medicine than marriage..”

1. Jason told me he invested in himself for retirement by raising three kids. And that’s his investment portfolio…

2.1 Brian’s wife was gonna take a C-Section have a baby on Thursday. I sent him an email one day earlier to wish him “to have a good baby”..

2.2 The next day Ravi shared the news that Brian’s wife had the baby smoothly through group email. I pretended to be smart like, “I wished Brian to have a good baby. I am glad I did my part..”

3. I was asked what to say if I was kidnapped if I wanna convince the kidnapper to let me go during a toast master impromptu speech. I was like, “First of all, I will cover my eyes, so that the kidnapper will be assured I don’t know how he/she looks and it will be safe to let me go…”

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Book store was selling a tutorial kit to teach chess.. #Once upon a time..

1. We asked someone at Rockport where to do the fishing. He was like, “Go along this road until you see a sign saying “Don’t enter” and keep going…”

2. Marc was heading back to home from office and I asked him if he had received the knowledge I radiated that day..

3. I showed Marc how to do something using Microsoft Visio and he said thanks. I joked with him like, “My pleasure, but that’s all I learned from Phd…”

4. I said happy birthday to Carly last Tuesday, but she told me her birthday was the next day. I was like, “Oh, happy birthday eve then~”

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Ate the biggest sesame ball in my life yesterday…

1. Jason told people how difficult it was to take care of his kids. I suggested him train his elder son (10 years old) to take care of his younger ones like, “If he does it right, give him a chocolate; if he does it wrong, spray him…” (To spray is a classic technique to train dogs..)

2. Brian thought one device on my desk was for some use, but it was not. He joked with me like, “Obviously you have a wrong device.” I joked back like, “No, obviously you are interested in the wrong device…”

3.1 I met Ravi, my manager’s manager the other Tuesday. He asked me how I was doing. I joked with him like, “I am good, but I think I worked too hard…”

3.2 Ravi joked back with me like, “You should pace yourself man. It’s only Tuesday..”

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Seaport Boston #OhYeahVersionOfNoPostProcessing

1. Guoshuai came back from vocation and told Yaniv he enjoyed the vocation a lot. Yaniv joked with him like, “Why did you come back then?” I was like, “Well, that’s the difference between vacation and unemployment…”

2. Koreen told us she did not eat lamb. I was like, “Well, sheep will be happy to know that..”

3. Claire told us she is paying her wife’s tuition. I joked with her like, “Very smart. You are investing in her..”

4. Srik took an Uber car to the airport. The driver was not familiar with the traffic and missed the same entrance over and over again. Srik was in such a hurry to catch the flight that he decided to take over the Uber driver’s seat and drove the Uber’s driver to the airport…

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Visited an old camera annual flea market and exhibition yesterday. Super cool, especially the spy mini camera and video camera, all mechanical and fully functional once equipped with films..

1.1 Srik couldn’t find me at my desk and asked me where I was at a later meeting. I told him, “I am god. I am everywhere…”

1.2 Gabe tried to be supportive like, “I support you, Barton.” I joked with him like, “You are Jewish, man. You are not supposed to believe in God…”

2. Marc told us he was taking Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off. I was like, “I am gonna miss you for 3 days then…”

3. I went snowboarding last Saturday, didn’t control the speed well, turned over a few times and made a really good fall. One guy evilly laughed at me pointing to another guy covered with snow, “Dude, you just made my friend feel so much better…” #the world is mean.

1.I joined a dinner party at a table and started talking to a girl as a friend. Rebecca joked by interrupting like, “Don’t hit on her. Her boyfriend is here.” I joked back like, “Oh, thanks. Normally she should be rejecting me right now…”

2. I went snowboarding with friends on a really really cold day. Some people couldn’t stand the temperature and decided to stay inside, which was not very hardcore. I joked with friends saying they were softcore..

3. Phil dropped by my desk just to say hi. I dropped by his desk to say hi later and told him I was doing some reciprocal harassment…

4. One lady companied Geoff in the office and greeted people. I knew she was Geoff’s wife but pretended to have no idea like, “Can I assume you are Geoff’s wife? Is it a solid assumption?”

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This organized scene in Yale library deeply impressed me, a OCD patient who likes to read..

1. I went snowboarding with friends. Helen and I started to compete about who wore more clothes. I told her I wore 3 layers and one under pant. She told me she wore one more bra than me…

2. The company’s kitchen has snacks and fruits. I walked into the kitchen the other day and found Jingyi behave awkwardly . So I joked with her like, “Are you stealing the bananas home?” “No,” she showed me what was in her bag and joked back like, “I am taking the oranges…”

3. David is my colleague originally from Britain. He became American citizen the other day and we threw a party at work.

3.1 I joked with him like, “how do you feel like being an American?

3.2 I joked with him again by asking, “Where is your British dignity?” He told me it was in his drawer back at home…

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One friend placed lots of butt cushion protectors in her pants and got ready for snowboarding…

1. Jason brought his 3-year-old daughter to work the other day and tried to get her relaxed with all the snacks in the work kitchen like, “Easy on the snacks, you have a whole day…”

2. Katie get her hair into braid the other day. Since forgetting about how to spell “braid”, I asked if she can spell it for me. She joked with me as if I have an unspeakable plan like, “Why do you want me to spell it? I don’t trust you…”

3. Yaniv called Annand in the middle night for work the other day and I joked with Annand like, “Are you sure that was not a booty call?”

4. I stayed in a big house called “Phoenix” with 28 concurrent houses mates for four years in Michigan. Teddy found a photo of the house taken by Google Map and posted on Facebook group, which reminded people of all the nostalgia for the house and especially the kiddie pool we used to dip ourselves  a lot into…

1. We moved to a new office while Phil was taking a vacation. The moment he walked into the new office he told me he hated his desk already. I comforted him like, “Dude, there is nothing you can do. Just imagine you get stuck with an ugly girlfriend…”

2. Phil and I hit the gym after work for two hours. We became super hungry and decided to eat Chinese BBQ buffet at China town. Phil told me like, “I am so excited, man. They are so fucked…”

3. I walked into the kitchen to have lunch and software team invited me to join them. So I got a new table and pulled it close to their table like, “Keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer…”

4. Ryan has been an intern in the team for 1.5 months but don’t know people well. We had an all-hands meeting and I introduced him to all ladies in our small group like, “Dude, if I were you, I would know all ladies within a week…”

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A cloud aircraft on the ocean

I ended up with no plans on Valentine’s Day and ran with Boston Road Runners. In the end we had a very nice Valentine run and dinner.

1.1 Carly told us she didn’t know her 28-year-old roomie was married until a few weeks ago. She is in Boston and her separated husband is in CA. We were all like, “They are really separated…”

1.2 After the run we asked if Carly has any plans. She was like, “I had plans with my married roommate…”

1.3 Teo asked if I would like to know his friend who’s in CA as a date. I was like, “Well, I feel divorced with her already…”

1.4 After the dinner I pretended to have plans like, “Guys, I have to go. I have plans for tonight.” Carly was like, “What’s your plan? To watch The Bachelor (A TV show)?”

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Way to sell alcohol

1. Every Tuesday evening I run with Boston Road Runners. Last Tuesday, Marco told me he sweated a lot, even in the winter. All of a sudden, it dawned on me that, “Dude, you are a sweater!” #Joke of the Week. #Kept me smiling for almost a week.

2. David turned 55 the other day. Brian joked that it was David’s speed limit… (He also asked me to put his joke on my blog, which I just did. 🙂 )

3. Shreya went on a business trip in George, got sick and stayed at home for a few days. When she came back, I joked by telling people Shreya still carried virus from Georgia…

4. Marc came back from the visit of the collaborator company where his ex-wife work. I asked him, “Marc, how was your ex-wife?” He told me, “It was good. We had half an hour of good conversation.” I was like, “Good. You both grew up..”

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A baby chicken learning to stride from his mother

1. Eladi is my good friend at work. He introduced me to his wife by saying we shared many hobbies such as comedies and photography. I told his wife like, “We also hate each other…”

2. Marc was gonna visit a collaborator company where his ex-wife is working. I asked Annand how Marc would feel. Annand was like, “I don’t know man. I have no ex-wife and I don’t know how it feels…”

3. I heard Meagan was leaving for another company last Friday. So I walked to her desk and pretend to be serious like, “Meagan, I heard you are leaving. We need to talk…”

4. Marc left for home and suggested people staying out of trouble and especially me. I joke with him like, “If you don’t trust me, I will give you a reason for not trusting me…”

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Saw this cute romantic scene from lift while snowboarding at Killington Vermont. Very cute! I wondered if the “Brittany” yes or not, but I definitely gave it a yes..

1. I was at the company’s happy hour last Fri. However Jason did not see me and ask why I did not show up later that day. I joked with him like, “Dude, why did you spend time ignoring me…?”

2. We were having lunch and I ask Jingyi what time it was. She told me, “Three to One.” David was like, “Good, it’s not One Two Three …”

3. Two presenters were giving us presentations. After the first presenter was done, he asked us, “Did I put you guys into sleep?” I was like, “Not yet.” The second presenter was like, “Good, that would be my job…”

4. We are moving to new office space next week and nobody knew their new seat position. I told people like, “I am going to pee to the desk I like and mark my territory.” Brett was like, “Go ahead. I am sure nobody will take your desk once you pee on it…”

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The small animals on the Caribbean Islands #OhYeah Version of no post-processing

1. I was having lunch with people and saw John pick avocado out of his salad and save for later. So I asked him, “Is avocado your favorite or lest favorite? I am trying to tell if you are an optimist or pessimist…”

2. My mum visited my work place last Friday and asked my manager to ask me to get married… Well played, Mum..

3. We had three interns and Suzy told them I was smart. I joke with her like, “Did you tell the truth, Suzy? I am pretty insecure of myself. I need your confirmation.”

4. I went Snowboarding in a car with friends. I started to tell a joke, and Jinglin told me she was ready for the punch line. I got super embarrassed like, “I just finished the joke…”

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One of the luggage claim machine in San Juan Airport was designed like a roulette. Nicely done.

1. We were taking a training of risk management. The trainer asked us, “Would the fall of a man from a ladder hurt him?” We all said sure. The trainer was like, “No. The fall won’t hurt, but the landing will…”

2. We asked Marc if he would join us in a restaurant named Genes for lunch. For some reason, he thought we were asking him to go to a restaurant wearing jeans and told us he couldn’t, because he was in suit pants that day.

3. Marc told us his GPS voice was set as of Female British Accent. We couldn’t help laughing. It just revealed Marc’s fantasy!

4. Marc asked me to do something, for which I need some help from Srik. So I talked to Marc like, “Tell Srik you need me to need him…”

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Visited a nudity beach two weeks ago, a little bit weird with my mum. A boy and a girl arrived at the beach, saw a man walking toward them and couldn’t help laughing to their parents pointing at that man. After seeing their parents simply smile back, they just started playing as if nothing happened. #Natural education.

1. Koreen caught a cold and took several days off.

1.1 Brittany texted Koreen to ask how she had been doing. Minutes later Brittany sneezed a few times. I joked with her like, “Did you just catch the cold from Koreen through the texts on the phone?”

1.2 Brittany joked back like, “I believe not. There is anti-virus software on my phone…”

1.3 I bought Koreen a can of Sake to celebrate her return and joked with her like, “I was gonna buy you a pack of cigarette, but I didn’t think you are cool enough…”

2. My mum and I spent a few days on St Maarten, co-owned by both France and Netherland. I read the following trip tip before the travel, “Because we are technically in France, there is always the chance that there will be topless women on the beaches…”

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St Maarten Airport, one the most dangerous and chilled airports on the earth. #The OhYeah version of no post processing#

1. Burt asked me if I had met Brian, a Philips colleague who also served as a patient for data collection. I was like, “No, I always de-identify patients…” (All patients’ data are required to be de-identified for almost everywhere including both academia and industry.)

2. Srik removed his cap from his head and put it on again, claiming to us like, “I just recapped…”

3. My mum bought 50 cats, one for each of my colleague. They are so cute and adorable!

3.1 I told colleagues that we need a sensor to measure cuteness level…

3.2 Srik held his cat and turn the cat 360 degree in horizontal plane and told me, “It’s Cat Scan…”  (CAT scan is an X-ray image made using computerized axial tomography.)

1.1 We had three days of training. On the morning of the first day, I chatted with the trainer, “So, we are gonna spend 3 days together?” The trainer was like, “Yeah, are you happy with it?” “I will let you know in 3 days…” I joked with him.

1.2 Koreen became sick on the second day and we discussed about missing the last day training. Because the last day concerned hardware, Brittany was like, “Who wanna miss the hard stuff?”

2. I attended a small seminar of around 8 people, two of which were named Marks. I joked with people like, “We have two Marks. That’s two of a kind. We will be in good shape if playing Texas Hodem.

3. The team had free pizza the other day. Jason told me he wanna eat vegan pizza even though he was not vegan, only because he wanna be treated differently. I joked with him like, “So, you are an attention whore?”

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Thanks to fate I met the smallest Tabasco in my life…

1.Pundit is from India. Joe said he looked tanned…

2. We talked about shooting guns in clubs in Boston. Jason told me people can shoot machine guns in New Hampshire… (Sounds so much fun. It’s on my list now.)

3. Koreen showed Claire something in the office, after which Claire was totally impressed and speechless. I joked with her like, “Normally people would applaud now. You are so rude…”

4. Right after I joined the company, I told my young colleagues that I would like to pretend to be cool in the office for a few months…

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Watched an epic football game between OSU and UM! What a dramatic game! So much unexpected happened and I almost got three heart attacks!

By now, the three most dramatic football games I watched are: a. Alabama vs Auburn (Nov 30, 2013); b. MSU vs UMichigan (Oct 17, 2015); c. OSU vs UMichigan (Nov 26, 2016). #Still a buckeye fan#

1. One device was not working for a demo. Nobody knew why. I was like, “Maybe it’s tired?”

2. Stacy appeared in a video meeting from Andover and came to our Boston site 2 hours later. I was like, “Stacy, I just saw you on TV!”

3.1 Brittany handed me a device and I got shocked by the static electronic discharge because of her hair. I was like, “Brittany, you are a hazard…”

3.2 We discussed about how to prevent it from happening. I was like, “Maybe you can keep your hair oily?” (oily hair won’t cause electric discharge)

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I went crabbing in August by myself and accidentally met the chair of Electrical & Computer Engineering Department in U of Tufts. He invited me to give a seminar the next day. I completed the seminar two days ago and gave a closure to this extremely academic crabbing event…

1. Suzy tested sensors by placing them on her chest. Because the sensors took too much space, she complained like, “There is no enough space on my chest.” I joked like, “Yeah, you need a bigger chest..” (I am glad she hasn’t called HR yet..)

2.1 I joined a toast master club by paying the membership due in their meeting. 5 mins later the host asked if they had a guest (non-member) for that day’s meeting. I was like, “We had one 5 mins ago…”

2.2 The host of toast master said he had the same pant as the other guy’s. I was like, you were pant buddies…

3. Koreen told me she thought she finished online training even though she did not. I comforted her like, “Don’t worry. I always have the same illusion.”

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Found an ad campaigning for a grant supporting projects that bring more humor to campus in a MIT building… Nerdy humor… I like it..

1. I saw Heather laugh happily with Vickie in marketing team’s office. Suzy and I saw her later that day in the kitchen and I joked with her like, “Heather, I saw you laughing with Vickie,,,, without us..” Suzy helped me like, “Yeah, how can you do this to us?!”

2. Brittany found a bug on our circuit: even after cutting the power input, the circuit still worked fine.. George joked like, “This circuit is definitely of a low power design…”

3. We collected some data from people. To do the de-identification of people, we named each person Subject 1, Subject 2… George joked like, “We should name them, Victim 1, Victim 2…”

4. We have happy hour at 3pm every Friday when people can drink beer. Claire held a beer at happy hour last Friday and asked why nobody else was drinking. I told her we were trying to make her feel bad about herself.. However, I picked up a beer afterwards and cheered with her like, “I drink this just for you..”

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Halloween Neighborhood Party at Beacon Hill. Kids carried bags on their shoulders here for candies…

1. Brian works from home sometimes. He dropped by my office the other day and I told him sometimes I missed him, but couldn’t find him in the office. He laughed and told me he would be in the office just for me.

2. Brittany asked me if I was available to help her. I told her sure. She asked me, “Are you sure? You look busy.” I told her, “En.. let me double check”, turned to my computer and turned back to her after 1 second like, “Yeah, I just checked. I AM available..”

3. We went to a wearable device design competition held by our Philips group and there were four judges. Srik told us he thought the last judge was pretty sharp. I told others like, “Guys, Srik judges judges…”

4. Keerthana was my lab mate in MSU. For some reason I received an email from MSU saying she was looking for people to participate in her experiment. I sent her an email to joke with her like, “Hey Keerthana, I heard you were looking for people to help. I am writing this email to let you know that I can’t. That’s all. Best regards, Mingwu”

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Visited Wellesley College one more time yesterday. Was planning to do some fishing but didn’t feel like showing any disrespect to this sacred place. Wellesley soccer team was playing a league game at their home field. To host a soccer game in such a picturesque field feels like a crime…

1. My colleagues and I took the freight elevator the other day, which was never open to people. The moment I got on, I told my colleagues, “I wondered how the freight felt when they took the elevator. Now I know…”

2. Marc bought us a bag of candies the other day, but took one piece for himself. I kidded him like, “Obviously, you assumed you were one of us…”

3. George’s laptop got virus. I comforted him like, “I am sorry, George, even though it doesn’t help…”

4. Yanive told me he didn’t date anybody for two years after splitting up with his ex when he was young. However, when he became ready to date, it took him only two weeks to “get back to business”…

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Visited Wellesley Colleague on a rainy afternoon. A beautiful campus of fall color in an idealistic and surreal way. The story of Mona Lisa Smile happened here, one of my three favorite movies. Love it. My friend told me the winter will be more beautiful. I will be back then.

1. We went out for lunch, heard Nicole was able to travel to different countries for business the other day and were all jealous. I was like, “Huh, guess who has the wrong job?”

2. We were having lunch. Claire told us she moved to China and stayed there for years at the age of 16. I was like, “Huh, I was gonna ask you how long ago was that, but then I will know your age and you probably will call HR…”

3. Brian told us whenever he told people he and his wife had four kids, people seemed to doubt if they did it on purposes like, “Well, we have four, obviously we know what we were doing..” I agreed, pretended to be him and got confused sarcastically like, “Huh, we have four kids, we must have done something right…”

4. Nicole works in the marketing team, but picked up people’s mails from the mail box and distributed in the office the other day. I joked with her like, “So, you are our mail woman…” (vs mailman)
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Saw this restaurant name in Toledo OH a few months ago. Again, I love it when people manipulate language and have fun.

1. Ravi’s desk is at the corner of the common space. Someone dropped by the other day and asked where Ravi’s desk was. I told him, “It’s at the corner. He is cornered…”

2. I walked out for lunch and hit the button of the elevator. A girl walked towards the elevator looking at me in shy, pressed the same button sneakily one more time and explained to me in shame like, “Sorry, I have to hit it…” #How to identify OCD patient fellow using naked eyes

3. I wore dress suit to work the other day for a product demo. Because I only wear suit for job interview, the moment Brittany complimented my suit, I was like, “Thanks, I am so job-interview ready…”

4. One of my friends told me one professor researched on how to let men experience the feeling of having women’s period…

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Saw this ad in Ohio a few months ago. I like It a lot when people manipulate language and have fun.

Today is the 10th anniversary of my blog. Too much to be said, but foremost I would like to thank every body who appears in my life and makes me who I am.

I can’t wait for what would appear on my blog in another 10 years.

I attended a data science conference in Boston from Thursday to Saturday last week.

1.1 The conference website claims: there is no official dress code, but shirts and shoes are required at all times…

1.2 My question is, how about pants?

2. One speaker presented one service provided by one wearable device detecting falls of seniors: whenever the senior falls, a message was automatically tweeted on the senior’s Twitter account… Obviously someone thinks it will help…

3. One speaker tried to deliver his message using a metaphor of parallel universe. A few minutes later something is wrong with the room’s audio system and it kept broadcasting the speech of next door’s speaker, which was totally irrelevant and interrupting our speaker. We kept laughing and our speaker was like, “Maybe it’s from our parallel universe…”

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Received my first ever patent royalty payment by in life. Not a lot of money, but definitely something special enough to be marked~

1. Marc is the project manager. Brittany asked Marc to sign one document one more time by asking, “Can you re sign / resign?”

2. George told us he was going to San Diego for vocation? I thought he was going to The Sea World and therefore asked, “Sea world?” He was like, “No, see family…”

3.1 We have a 15 mins meeting every morning. George couldn’t make it the other day and therefore called in by phone. We glued his photo on the back of his chair, so that we can picture he was here when he was talking. When the meeting was done, Marc moved George’s chair and talked to the photo like, “Thanks George..”

3.2 George came back the next day and stood besides his chair and his photo. Whenever he wanna say “I”, he used “We” representing both him and his photo. For example, “We are glad to come back.” “We disagreed with your comments。”

It was super funny for me because I heard this joke before: someone told others, “I used to have bipolar personalities. but we are all good now.“

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Moved into Beacon Hill. 11 mins’ walk from home to work. Happiness level was elevated.

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1.1 Joe carried a mail package and I joked with him by asking, “Is it for me?” He was like, “No, but tell me what you need. I will get it to you.” I was like, “I need happiness…”

1.2 Later that day Joe dropped by office. I asked Joe, “How are you gonna deliver my happiness, Joe? UPS?”

2. Burt, the group manager, was talking to people in the meeting and I can’t help sneezing three times. Because his talk was interrupted and everybody was looking at me, I had to apologize to Burt by joking like, “Sorry… for stealing your thunder…”

3. Sometimes George’s sneezes are very gentle, but sometimes wild. I told George the other day like, “I think the variation of your sneezes are too big. You need some quality control of your sneezes…” (Based on Six Sigma, big variation of a product indicate the defects of manufacture processes.

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Suzy got this huge carrot for her coop veggie plan and show it around in the office. Obviously it’s the largest carrot that appeared in my life.

1. I watched an American football video which includes a cartoon Pikachus hit by a football. The end of the video claimed:” No Pikachus were harmed in the making of this film…”

2. We went out for lunch and Koreen crossed the street by running and almost got hit by a car. Suzi screamed like, “OMG, Koreen! Don’t do it.” I joked like, “Agreed. I don’t mind if she dies, but I mind seeing her die.”

3. The group of Philips I joined work in a startup incubator in downtown Boston. The incubator used to put a cold brew keg on 15th floor, but moved it to 17th the other day. George said maybe they changed it to spice it up and keep people’s feeling fresh. I was like, “Just like what people do to keep marriage fresh?”

4. Ravi came dressed in suit one Friday to meet a guest. The moment he walked in, George joked with him like, “You are way over dressed for a Friday!”

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Downtown Cleveland..

1.1 George is good at playing chess. I asked how he started playing. He told me his Dad made him, because his dad believe it would get him popular among girls…

1.2 However, he told me he hasn’t played chess for a while and I asked why. He told me, “Because I don’t wanna get divorced…”

2. We were discussing in the office and Brittany dropped a piece of snack. She lowered her body to pick it up and looked at me as if she made a big mistake. Immediately I turned my head away to make her feel better by saying “I didn’t see it…”

3. Jian caught a cold and asked people what he should do on Chinese FB. Yau suggested like, “Masturbate less.” I disagreed and suggested him like, “Masturbate more…”

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We’ve got an ultimate product development tool:

I helped test a sensor by putting it on my forehead. For some reason it caused some noticeable but minor bruises. Because we are working on medical devices, it was kinda a big deal and we had to talk about it in various occasions… by joking about it.

1. I told people I was injured by the sensor. However, “As a team player, I would do whatever is best for the team…”

2. Because Suzi was responsible for the sensor, she told me she was sorry and appreciated it. I told her I appreciate her appreciation…

3. George asked Suzi like, “I heard the sensor caused some damages on Barton…”

4. Suzi referred this incident like, “Obviously, we have a trauma issue..”

5. Because some people did not come to the office that day, I reminded them the next day like, “Those who haven’t shown me their appreciation for my sacrifices, please feel free to let me know…”

6. George joked with Ravi, the unit leader, that they are gonna use my body for more rigorous sensor test. I was like, “Well, I am the chosen one..” (Jesus is also the chosen one.)

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I took the wrong exit while driving on the highway and saw this…

1.Something is not right with the firmware of one device and the LED of amber color kept blinking.

1.1 Srik joked that it was our own Amber Alert… (Instead of having a kid missing, we have some bits missing in the data.)

1.2 Brittany was like, “It was bit-napping…”(instead of kidnapping..)

2. We were chilling in the kitchen after lunch. John told a joke, which made Vickie laugh. Mark commented that Vickie liked laughing with John. I joked like, “Well, I think Vickie does not like laughing with John. She just likes laughing at John…”

3. We went out for lunch. George and Koreen recommended some food to me. After tasting what I ordered, I joked with then like, “I was gonna test my trust on you guys based on this food. So far you guys still have it. 🙂 ”

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We went out to a pizza place for lunch and found this sign on the wall comforting people for what they were doing…  “It’s Okay to eat whole pizza by yourself.”

1.We were going out for lunch and asked if Mark would like to join. For some reason we were all dressed casually, but Mark was in professional attire. Brittany told Mark that restaurant was “cash only“. Hilariously Mark thought she said “casual only”, and therefore looked down at his attire and appeared totally helpless..

2. John and Guoshuai were discussing about Big Endian and Little Endian of data type. For some reason their pronunciation of “Endian” sounded like “Indian”. Since Srik was from India, he joked with them like, “Don’t talk about ‘little Indian’, or I will call HR..”

3. Srik is from India and shook his head when saying yes. I joked about it the other day. He asked me, “I know you guys nodded when saying ‘yes’, but what about ‘no’?” I told him we shook heads. He was quite surprised, raised his chin quickly a few times and told us, “I thought you guys nodded upwards..”

4. George and I introduced each other on my first day at work. We walked out for lunch the next day, when he turned back and offered to shake my hand like, “Officially, George.” I tried to be funny and replied back like, “Officially, Barton…”

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To celebrate the release of the new Harry Potter book, Harvard Book store threw a big party on Saturday night and the Harvard Square was temporarily named “Hogwarts Square”…

1. We needed a caliber in the lab and someone brought one. George asked, “Is it calibrated?” I was like, “No, we need a caliber to calibrate this caliber..”

2. Srihar was giving a speech during group retreat. Because his voice was so soft, someone requested him to speak up. He was like, “Sure, I can. But my wife always asked the other way..”

3. We went out for lunch and Suzi told me “yuppie” meant “young urban professional”. Because George was senior, I kidded him like, “Hey George, you used to be a yuppie, right?”

4. Ravi, Ales and I went out for lunch. Because they used to work in the same company, they started talking about whom of their colleagues passed away recently. They went through 4 or 5 people and would like to continue as if the lunch topic was “Who else died?” I joked with them like, “So far I love the topic of our lunch…”

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First time to wait for a ship to pass a bridge while driving. This is how the bridge looked like when it happened..

1. Xiaofeng, Yan and I took graduation photos of each other with Yan’s parents with us. For some reason the moment Yan’s mum saw me, she said I was good looking. I was so happy until minutes later when we asked her to take a photo of us, she said she forgot to wear glasses and couldn’t see clearly…

2. I took an lunch interview with three interviewers and one of them asked me what my dream job was. I joked with them like, “Dream job? Money, lots of money. My dream job was to make a lot of money…” They laughed and I continued to explained to them why my dream job was not to make lots of money.

3. Yiqun was over weighted. One day he came to our office to chill. I joked with him like, “Dude, your weight seems to be pretty… stable…”

4. Shunjue told us he thought a girl blocked him from texting her. So he texted “Test” to that girl and the text turned out to be delivered… Full of embarrassment..

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Got a good deal renting an apartment in downtown Boston. 11 minutes’ walk from work at downtown and similar distance from Charles River. The move in date is 9/1 but the happiness level has already been elevated. Here is a shot of Charles River.

1.I was watching Game of Thrones. One guy trying to learn swordsmanship sucked badly but still could not pick up anything others taught him. He was frustrated like, “Ah, I can’t get any better!” Because he was so bad, others kidded him like, “Well, you can’t get any worse either…”

2. Sue shared her feelings the other day on FB like, “I started work at Ohio State thirty years and about ten pounds ago…”

3.1 I walked around in Cleveland downtown and for some reason ended up eating pizza sharing a table with a guy and a girl. They came to Cleveland for friends’ wedding. Because the bride is native Indian, the couple decided to hold two weddings, one in traditional American way and the other in native Indian way. So I have to ask the guy and the girl like, “So do you need to give the couple money twice?”

3.2 The girl complained she became pickier with food as she became older (even though she was only in her 20s). I had to be honest to her like, “I hate to say this, but you are probably becoming your mum…”

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I found three abandoned houses probably because of Decline of Detroit on my way moving to Boston. Glad no homeless was inside, but still pretty scary to walk in all by myself.

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1. This is something embarrassing. I didn’t feel well with my gut the other day and the doctor gave me a stool kit to take some stool (feces) sample. I followed the instructions, produced some feces sample and put them in the stool kit wrapped in a bag.

For some reason I needed to carry the bag to the cafeteria for lunch with friends before sending it back to the hospital. Obviously it didn’t sound a good idea to carry some poop to the table with people eating, so I decided to hide the bag in the big container of men’s room holding the used towels for wiping people’s hands assuming nobody will care enough to steal.

Well, after lunch I got back and found my poop taken away by the janitor along with everything else in the container…

2. Yan, Xiaofeng and I took graduation photos of each other a few weeks ago. Yan was self-conscious like, “I wanna keep those photos so that someday in the future I can say, ‘WOW, I used to be this fat.'” I kidded her like “Maybe someday in the future you can say, ‘WOW, I used to be this thin…'”

3. Kim shared the following story on FB. “Me to my ethics class today: ‘Does anyone have any questions?’ Girl raises her hand: ‘Yeah where do you shop? You look great all the time’ ” …

4. I read this regarding the comparisons between Boston and California: “You walk down the street in Boston and people say, ‘fu** you’, they mean ‘have a nice day’. You walk down the street in California and people say, ‘have a nice day’, they mean…”

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On her flight back to China a few months ago, my mum found the same attendant that served her on her flight to USA 6 months before. She was excited and took another photo with her.

1. I attended the wedding of James and Beth two months ago. After the wedding ceremony was over, James and Beth walked out of the wedding hall slowly holding hands with everybody watching. It was exactly when all of a sudden the theme music of Indiana Jones started to be played… Well, marriage did sound like an adventure…

2. I bought people ice creams in the diary store the other day, but Annand only took one bottle of milk. Probably for fun, he kept shaking the milk while we walked back to the office. I had to remind him like, “Dude, do you know that’s not the right way to make milk shake?”

3. Annand missed the phone calls from his female friends the other day. I kidded him like, “Dude, you just saved yourself a lot of sex tonight …”

4. Hillary quoted on FB like, “Everything happens for a raisin …”

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Sorry for talking about graduating for almost two years without being able to graduate. Finally I graduated.

1. I read an ESPN news reporting UM football team had an really intense internal scrimmage game and the wining team would have steak for dinner. The news reported the reward of the game like, “Stakes? Steaks..”

2. We were discussing about submitting papers to a really good journal and Jiankun said he found many papers published by that journal were not that good. I agreed with him like, “You are right. If they can publish crappy work, why can’t they publish ours!?”

3. A distinguished professor is coming to Mohsen’s Phd defense this Monday. Because the professor is so good, I told people that I would try let him know me by telling them I would try to kiss his ass. Jiankun said he wanna do it too. So I was like, “So we should each take a cheek…”

4. Saw this in a zoo marking the camels‘ territory. World’s Bumpiest Ride…

1.The department secretary emailed us all events for the “Mental Health Awareness Week” the other day. I kidded Keerthana like, “Hey Keerthana, mark your calendar. This week is Mental Health Awareness Week…You probably should be aware..”

2. Rama asked Jiankun to ask me how to draw a figure because I did similar thing for one of my published papers. To confirm my capacity, I told Jiankun, “Yes, I can do that. I have a publication as evidence…”

3. We are thinking about submitting one of my papers to a really good journal (Impact Factor>14.0), but not sure if they will review it. The good thing is because Rama is gonna submit Jiankun’s paper to that journal too, we can have some idea about it really quick. I felt lucky and told people in the office seriously like, “Smart people learn from mistakes; smarter people learn from others’ mistake…”

4. Ehab and Kun are partners for a course. Because Ehab needs something that Xi had, but Xi didn’t know Ehab’s email, Xi emailed the thing to Kun. I told Kun, “Dude, you are Ehab’s mailman…”

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Some building’s ceiling in the campus of U of Houston… I am addicted to symmetric structures.. Sign of OCD? 😦

1.I joined the online chatting group of elementary school classmates. Cui, one of my classmates, told people her son couldn’t tell the difference between different men and would call any man “Dad”. Once she took her son to a gym and he called a man doing the bench press “Dad”… And that dude almost dropped the weight bar and killed himself…

2. I read someone telling a story being asked how to solve a really trivial problem for a brain teaser interview by Microsoft. Because he didn’t know the answer and it was a brain teaser, he thought the answer could be anything and therefore told the interviewer that he would just google it. Someone corrected him like, “You probably should say, I will Bing it…”

3. I watched the movie of Everest, in which a guy was asked if his wife is OK with him climbing the Everest. He was like, “Oh, she’s been ok since our divorce…”

4. My mum is so good at pretending to read whatever she had totally no idea about…

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I shared my understanding of programming with office mates the other day. A few years ago it started to dawn on me that life is like programming on the computer in the following sense. For programming, we employ resources of computers and try to control their work flows to do whatever we desired them to do. In real life, everybody was trying to coordinate or control (to some extend) a variety of resources hoping things will turn out to be what we desire them to be. The difference is, in real life we don’t have as much control over things as what we have for programming.

1. Jiankun was trying to tell me something by getting my attention like, “Mingwu, you know what?” I joked with him by interrupting him, “No, I don’t know what..”

2. I joked with Annand by pretending to be in an intimate relationship with him and poked his back. He pretended to be harassed and continued the joke with me, “Dude, behave yourself. I just took the online course of Sexual Violation. I know my rights.” I joked back like, “Well, I don’t…”

3. We were discussing the liver donor for transplant may be a drunk driver killed in an accident. Nima was like, “Are you guys sure the donor’s liver is still good for transplant for all the alcohol? …”

4. I was playing soccer in an indoor soccer arena and found my soccer ball was staying in a unreachable corner of the arena and thought some bastards kicked my ball there but didn’t bother to get it out. So I spent some efforts and got the ball out. Surprisingly the moment I got home, I found another ball on the floor of my room…

1. I haven’t seen Mike for years and finally met him the other day. I told him I didn’t sleep well for days. He was like, “Is it because you were too excited to see me?” I was like, “Well, I don’t wanna lie, but I don’t wanna hurt your feelings either…”

2. One professor invited one speaker for a seminar. He encouraged the students in his class, which I was auditing, to go to the seminar by promising “Whoever got the signature of the speaker can get 4.0 for his course…”

3. Jiankun and I ordered one big hot pot in a restaurant and asked if Kim would like to taste some. Keerthna thought we asked her too so she went ahead and tasted some too. I kidded her by talking to others like, “Huh, Keerthna always invited herself…”

4. I didn’t grow a pair of wings as promised by Red Bull and just received my very first lawsuit settlement payment against Red Bull… (News about the law suit is here)

1.Jiankun stood in front of Annand’s desk the other day and pretended to be cool by planning to ask, “Hey, What the fuck?” However he made a grammar mistake which totally negated the coolness he was trying to deliver and ended up asking, “Hey, what the fuck up?”

2. John McAfee is the founder of McAfee Inc and left McAfee Inc in 1994. McAfee Inc was sold to Intel in 2011 and decided to drop the name of “McAfee”. When asked about his opinions about this incidents, John McAfee expressed his pleasure at his name no longer being associated with the software. “I am now everlastingly grateful to Intel for freeing me from this terrible association with the worst software on the planet…”

3.1 I saw a worn out mark on Mike’s iphone as below and asked him about it. He told me that mark was only on the case by saying, “Just in case…” (This is probably the best joke I heard for a long long time…”

3.2 He also told me he was listening to a radio station and the host was named, “Justin Case”…

For last week’s blog I reported Lozzy made 50 pins saying “Syd Sucks”. Yesterday Phoenix house actually threw a “Syd Sucks (Party)!” inviting hundreds of people. And those who came early enough can get a pin. On the party’s FB page, people reported many incidents that Syd behaved either carelessly or oddly or both to kid Syd, all of which were pretty funny and came with hashtag #SydSucks#. They all came out of people’s love to Syd including Syd’s brother’s.

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The best post is actually from Syd’s dad.

I think Syd has a cool dad.

1. We were having a skype meeting. Right after the connection was built between Rama and Jinoh’s computers, Rama asked, “Wait, how can I share the screen?” Right after Rama solved his confusion, Jinoh asked, “Do you guys know how I can turn up the sound volume?” I kidded them like, “Come on. You guys talked like grandpas…”

2. Keerthna came to the office at 5pm the other day, because phd student schedule is flexible. I kidded her by asking, “So you start working on the 2nd shift?”

3. Jiankun came to the conclusion that the meat of bears and rats did not taste good because their food were somehow not fresh and not tasting good. I kidded him like, “So are you saying pigs’ food taste good?”

4. Syd and Lozzy were my ex house mates. Lozzy posted this photo on Syd’s facebook page the other day like, “fifty pins just delivered to my doorstep!”

1.Some of my Chinese friends lamented that it’s almost been 10 years since we landed on USA (2007) when chatting online.

1.1 Sex God became emotional like, “10 years ago we were still dumbasses.” I kidded him like, “Don’t get us wrong. Only you were a dumbass 10 ago…”

1.2 He continued being emotional like, “10 years later, we are now dumbasses.” I kidded him one more time, “You got us wrong again. 10 years later, still only you were a dumbass…”

2. Someone on Rama’s funding team was not lucky and caused many unfortunate incidents that delayed the projects.

2.1 Rama believes some people are always luckier than others like, “Next time before I hire someone, I have to ask if he is a lucky person…”

2.2 I disagree with him, “That’s not true. I believe people are equally lucky overall. If someone was luckier before, he probably would have less luck after you hire him…”

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The scream on a pumpkin I saw many years ago.

1. Cleveland Cavalier fired its head coach, who is from Israel, and fans believed that was Lebron James’ bad. Angry Israel fans left message in Hebrew on Twitter @Lebron like,

1.1 I wish you go to bed believing you are charging your phone for the next day but you are not. Amen!

1.2 I wish you were in the middle of watching a porno on phone when you data plan just ran out. Amen!

2. Anand showed me a link listing the most googled product in each country. (The link is here.)

2.1 While the one in China is expected electronics, the one in India is “Cow..”

2.2 The moment I thought cow is pretty funny I found the one in Iraq is actually “Kidney…”

1. Jiankun suggested us eat burgers on Martin Luther King Day. I was confused and asked why. He said because he thought the black liked burgers… I found it pretty funny like, “First of all, you shouldn’t be a racist; second of all, if you wanna be a racist, you should do it right…”

2. Anand has commitment issues but he likes to pretend to be in an intimate relationship with Jiankun. I had to warn him one day that, “Dude, watch out! Jiankun is the one with no commitment issue…”

3. Amy visited Dubai and a shopping mall which claimed itself the biggest shopping mall in the world. She posted a photo on FB like, “happy to say i left the world’s largest shopping mall without buying anything…” I replied like, “So proud of you girl!”

4, I went to an event named Michigan Winter Dog Classic yesterday and saw this dog without a tail. I told the dog’s owner like, “No offense, but your dog probably needs a retailer…”

(This is an old joke, which was first told by my old friend Mike Burt in Oct 2007 when I was in OSU. Here is the link that recorded that joke more than 8 years ago… Time did fly.. )

1. There is a girl named Mariah on the same floor of our office in the engineering building. I told people the other day like, “I am not sure if she’s married, but I am sure her son’s name is Jesus…” (Based on bible…)

2. Mohsen had a friend in the office discussing about something. They were kind to ask me if their discussion bothered me. I was like, “No, you are good. I am sleepy and need people talking to stay awake..”

3. After Mohsen came back from lunch, Jiankun asked him, “How is your food?” Mohsen said, “It is good.” I corrected Mohsen by intentionally interpreting “How is your food?” in another way like, “Mohsen, you probably should say, ‘I don’t think they are doing good. They just got eaten…'”

4. I sat in one class and the professor warned students of no cheating like, “Please no cheating. That’s a lot of paper work for me to do…”

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I’ve only seen fractional numbers used as address twice before. One is 319 1/2 Grand River Ave, East Lansing, MI; the other is 6 1/2 Ave in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Just saying.

1.I was playing a sport game with people and Ian’s wrist became reddish for some reason. People suggested him go to school’s hospital. Peter was like, “Statically speaking, the school’s doctor probably will say you are pregnant…”

2. I have been using Mohsen’s facial tissues a few times when he was not around, because I knew he wouldn’t care. The other day it came to me that I probably should let him know, so I ask him, “Mohsen, can I steal your tissues 5 times in the past month?”

3. I went to a seminar teaching people about proposals for funding.

3.1 In order to show the importance of a title, the seminar’s speaker told me people about a book, named “Everything Men Know about Women” published 25 years ago and sold 20,000 copies in the first week. The book has 128 pages but every single page is just blank…

3.2 One reviewer commented like, “Using a little bit more than 100 pages, this book presents everything men know about women…”

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Something seems to be upsetting this baby..

1. Annand is super insecure of his belly size. When people were chatting in office he can be totally not distracted and focusing whatever he was doing. But whenever anyone mentioned the word “belly”, he would turn around and ask, “What? Did you guys talk about me?”

2. Afeifei gave a speech among other speakers the other day, after which he joked with me by asking “Did you even understand anything?” I joked back like, “I can only understand your talk. It’s so easy..”

3. I read a book about computer history, which mentioned the following episodes.

3.1 After transistor was invented, it was widely used in the radio and boost the popularity of radio, which in turn boosted the popularity of Rock&Roll music in 1950s and 1960s. The Rock&Roll music was so loud and annoying to some people including Walter Brattain, one of the transistor’s co-inventors, who once lamented like, “The only regret I have about the transistor is its use for Rock&Roll…”

3.2  Douglas Engelbart presented a demo computer in 1968 with all elements of modern computer, including network, graphical interface, hyperlinks, video conference and a lot more. Because since then all computer demos have been simply its implementation, this demo was retrospectively named “The Mother of All Demos…”
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Found the mailboxes of a community. Neat design.

I was at my friend’s graduation ceremony and ended up sitting next to a lady and her daughter.

1.1 The lady told me she and her family came here for her son’s gf’s graduation and her son’s gf was a nurse. A few minutes later the lady turned to me and tried to tell me her son’s gf was a nurse again before it came to her that she already had done so. She joked like, “People in my age tends to do stuff like that…” I joked back by asking, “I am sorry. What did you try to tell me?” She laughed and I joked like, “I asked because I wanna make you feel good about yourself…”

1.2 One speaker was delivering a speech and encouraged all graduates like, “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something.” The lady turned to me like, “True, but except your mum…”

1.3 Another speaker was the chief editor of National Geographic Magazine and talked about her story of quitting college after her junior year. I talked to the lady like, “Very helpful suggestion. But it may come too late for a graduation ceremony…”

1.4 The graduation ceremony was held in Michigan State U and the lady’s daughter was studying in U of Michigan. During the ceremony I told the lady and her daughter that I was a secret fan of Ohio State football. The lady’s daughter appeared surprised and joked like, “Well, nobody here likes you.” I joked back like, “Well, I wanna be honest with you guys just in case somebody here likes me…”

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Wangcai found and started developing a secret love affair undetected with his gf nearly one year ago, freshedly recovered by paparazzi in the past holiday when they were shopping in a mall. His gf’s name remains unknown…

1. I used computers of windows system most of the time because many engineering softwares don’t support MAC. So one day when I had to work on a MAC book for a presentation 6 months ago, I appeared clumsy and had to apologize to the audience like, “Sorry, I am a PC guy…” (Search “PC guy” on Youtube, you will find a series of “PC guy” commercials Apple ran for 3 years)

2. I told Anand that I am getting close to have six packs. He was jealous like, “Shit, I don’t like men with 6 packs…”

3. I watched a video on Youtube of someone driving a car crossing a river only on two pieces of long and flexible wood. It was super risky but the guy made it. Someone commented like, “Let’s talk about balls…”

4. The plate number of Jiankun’s car is “Niu Bi”, which means “Bad Ass” in Chinese. Prof Deller saw it and asked what it meant. Jiankun mistakenly thought “Niu Bi” means “Asshole” and told it to Prof Deller. And Prof Deller was like, “Actually, Asshole is a very good name for a car plate…”

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The University of Chicago has a really beautiful campus.

1. I stayed in engineering school’s computer lab and overheard a girl talking to her friends like, “I have to confess to you guys I made it until this semester without crying because of school…”

2. The pants of Yiou’s 4-years-old son became dirty one day, because he stood on his knees. He was really sweet and asked Yiou if he broke the pants and pants were OK to wear again. Yiou shared the story on line and lamented like, “Sign, kids from poor family tend to care about stuff.” I joked like, “Hahaha, kids from poor family probably should take off the pants before standing on the knees…”

3. There was an ECE department holiday party at noon the other day. Minutues before noon I saw Brian walking to the office. He told me he was going to the party but did not tell me he was only going to set it up. So 3 minutes later when I saw him coming back from the party, I was quite surprised and asked him, “Was the party over?!”

4. I walked around in engineering undergraduates design expo and saw one fun competition as a course design for Heat Transfer. Students in that course were required to design a strategy to heat up a hot dog and compete with each other to see which team can get the hot dog reach highest temperature after 5 mins. Pretty fun!

1. I came across Afeifei in the hall way. He noticed me holding a book named “It’s Not the How or the What but the Who” and asked pointing to the book, “Is it why you come to find me?” I walked backward and was like, “No, it’s why I am walking away from you.”

2. Afeifei and I both asked a question in a class. During the break, I joked with him by asking, “Dude, did you notice something? The professor said mine was a good question, but said nothing on yours…”

3.1 Keerthana joined women engineering society a few months ago and mentioned she was a feminist again in the office after that. I joked with people like, “Huh, after Keerthana joined women engineering society, her belief became stronger..”

3.2 One good thing about women engineering society is they gave members lots of free food frequently. One day Keerthana brought back a box of pie. On the box cover ironically was a lady working in the kitchen, an image which probably did not agree with the ideology of feminist and women engineering society.

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Found this plate in a hut near Yosemite 6 months ago. The end of “AH” made “lobstah” a word of more fun.

1. Scott and Sarah are a couple and both my friends. They posted a photo of them together on FB. I kidded Scott by replying like, “No way. Sarah is so out of Scott’s league..”

2. ESPN held college football day in Ohio State last weekend. Desmond Howard, a U Michigan previous football star player appeared in the campus and on TV disguised as a crazy woman. When asked why he was doing that, he said, “There are so many crazy fans on campus, I wanna blend in with all the craziness…”

3. Rama asked me to pull together a draft which I was hesitant to do, because I was not sure what he liked to write in the draft. He was like, “If I were you I would sit and think really hard what to write.” I was like, “That is actually my problem. I don’t know what you think hard to write..”

4. The department dean met us to review Rama’s Interest of Confliction because Rama had a company. I knew we need to do it every year, after the meeting I said goodbye to the dean like, “See you next year…”

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This squirrel is working on his Halloween pumpkin…

1. I found a course named Large Data on internet. Someone commented under like, “I probably will wait for the one for Extra Large…”

2.1 I dropped by Afeifei’s office to chill, when his professor called to ask him to go downstairs. So he talked to his office mate pointing to me like, “I am going downstairs. You take care of this fucker, OK?” and continued like, “I need a baby tomorrow.” His roommate was like, “Don’t worry. I will give you twins.”

2.2 I asked Afeifei’s officemate like, “Did Afeifei fuck with you a lot in the office?”

3. I found this bumper sticker on campus. Obviously parking on campus can be stressful.

80. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon -Brad Stone 90%

A biography of Amazon’s founder. I like the story of Jeff Bezos, not only because it is exciting to figure out how the empire was built from scratch but also because I am a big fan of Bezos’ long term thinking strategy. To always keep long term goal in mind is the best way to avoid short term crises and build something to last.

79. Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything -Joshua Foer 70%

This is a story of the author who became a memorizing champion with a mediocre aptitude by receiving training of memorizing. I admit it is cool have a photographic memory, but I don’t think it worth tons of time and training to get it, because the difference between people and computer is our ability of understanding, analyzing and interacting with other people. Why to spend time trying to be a super calculator or memorizer when it can be simply done by computers. Anyway, it is still fun to know about the story, but that is probably all I get from the book.

78. Sam Walton: Made In America -Sam Walton 95%

An autobiography of Walmart’s founder. What a legend! It, to some extent, explained how and why Sam Walton can build such an empire. Walton’s wisdom and work ethics are very respectable.

77. The Remains of the Day -Kazuo Ishiguro 85%

A novel about a butter who served a UK Lord before and after WWII. It’s Jeff Bezos’s favorite novel and he said he learned more from this book than any other business book. There is a lot to learn regarding people holding their respect to their profession and royalty.

76. Above the Line: Lessons in Leadership and Life from a Championship Season -Urban Meyer 90%

Ohio State Univ football team coach’s book about leadership and incredible story of winning a championship last year. There is no nonsense bullshit. Everything about leadership sounds convincing and testified. I like the book.

75. SuperFreakonomics -Steven Levitt 85%

A sequential book of Freakonomics. A similar way of writing and a really book with some critical insights toward various topics in life and society. The only issue is the stories of some chapters are somewhat cheesy to be put together, but I have to admit it’s super hard to produce high quality writing using the same style and similar content.

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For the complete list of books I have been reading, please click here.

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Found two trees filled with 4 seasons last weekend. (I realized having only trees in a shot makes photo boring, even though the trees themselves were beautiful. So I parked my car intentionally close to the trees to make my photo look better. #The art of parking for better photos..#)

1. I attended a seminar and the speaker was talking about predicting heart attack. Someone asked, “What would a guy do if he knows he will have a heart attack in a few minutes?”

1.1 Someone in the audience was like, “Maybe that itself will give him a heart attack..”

1.2 Another guy was like, “Maybe he will call a lawyer..”

2. LK requested Rama to do something in a meeting so that he could access data. After the meeting Rama told me he needed to do the thing right now, otherwise LK would conclude he couldn’t do any work. I was like, “Huh, that’s a bad conclusion…”

3. We were chatting and Jiankun claimed he would work out more. Right after that it came to him that he needed to submit resumes and therefore he told us that, “Oh I need to do some job hunting now.” I was like, “Is it your way of working out?”

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Sarah had her BD the other day and here was the present her friends gave her…

1, I asked Annand how his experiment was going and he said he got decent results. Mohsen was like, “Decent results are the worst results. They are not good enough to wrap up the project and not bad enough to give up the idea..”

2. Xiaopeng and Shaochen shared a 2b apartment for 2 years. Before they moved in they were wondering which floor to live on, 1st floor, so that their noise would bother nobody, or 3rd floor, so that nobody’s noise would bother them. They spent lots of time thinking about it and in the end decided to live on the 3rd floor…

3. Annand told me he has been rejected by some girls. I tried to comfort him, but he said those girls were not his type. I was like, “Obviously, whichever girl that rejected Annand was not his type..”

4. Lizzy shared an article talking about how good ex-roomies were on Hillary’s FB page and said she missed Hillary. I joked like, “You ladies are so girly. Grow up and be a man!”

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Notre Dame’s campus has a cafeteria offering pizza baked in a real stove. Really nice.

1.I asked Rama about one of my understanding about one research problem. He disagreed and joked I had a serious mistake. I was like, “No, I don’t have a serious mistake. I only have a theory mistake.”

2. I went to a series of seminars last Saturday. One speaker, who is the event’s organizer, started his talk like, “Hello everybody, I am the most important speaker, because I am the one in charge of pizza for lunch..”

3.1 I audited a course and the professor’s stylus was not working on her computer, so she asked us if we know why. I was like, “Maybe it is out of ink?”

3.2 Sadly nobody got my joke and everybody including the professor looked at me confusedly. Afeifei later asked me what I said. I was like, “Dude, you are asking me to explain my joke. That’s the biggest insult to me.”

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U of Northwestern campus offers free tools for student to maintain their bikes. Very thoughtful.

1. Six of us went to an Indian restaurant and ordered some Naan. All of a sudden, I told Annand my discovery, “Dude, you have a nan in your name…”

2. Annand told Keerthna some food was not good for health in the long run. I comforted her like, “Don’t worry, you won’t live long anyway…”

3. Jiankun bought us lunch out the other day. When we came back at 2pm, we told Ahmad we just came back from lunch and he thought that was too late for lunch. I was like, “Well, not for free lunch…”

4. I drove Jiankun to a mechanics shop and saw this on the door:

1, Afeifei introduced me to his fiancee last year. I met him and his fiance again the other day. Because his fiance looked different from one year ago, I asked Afeifei why she looked different. He told me they just got married. So I joked like, “Huh, maybe that’s why she looked unhappy…”

2. Annand told me girls liked to be called chicks. So when Keerthana walked in the office, I asked her, “Hey Keerthana, Annand told me girls like to be called chicks. Is it true?”

3. We told Annand he could take a shower in the gym if he liked, but he said he didn’t feel comfortable showering in front of others. I was like, “Dude, you eat using hands and wipe butt without using toilet paper in India, but you can’t shower in front of others?”

4. Rand Paul recognized the book of Hillary Clinton’s Memoir as his favorite fiction… (Click here for the news on The New York Times)

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The campus of University Of Chicago is beautiful.

1. Di returned to China eight months ago and worked in a government department. Someone told me for some reason Di can commute to work in a police car. I was like, “Huh, how long does he have to work? One year or two years?”

2. I watched an interview of Steve Jobs and John Lasseter hosted by Charlie Rose in 1996 for the grand release of Toy Story on Youtube. Rose was quite impressed by Jobs who started a computer company, got fired in a company politics incident but did some contribution in entertainment industry ten years later. In the end of the interview, Rose talked to Jobs like, “I am expecting to interview you again in five or ten years. Maybe you will be working in another industry.” Jobs was like, “You know Charlie, I like to stick around until got fired sometime…”

3. Ali got married to a Chinese girl a few months ago and offered to give me some suggestions on Chinese girls. I was like, “What are you talking about? I know everything about Chinese girls. They are insecure and like to be in control of men.” Ali was like, “Dude, it’s not just Chinese girls. All girls are like that…”

4. One spot on Grand River can view Bald Eagle Nest. Annoying people drove cops so crazy that cops have to put up this sign…

Eagle Nest reminded me of Adolf Hitler’s 50th birthday’s gift- Eagle’s Nest, a teahouse perched on a mountain summit somewhere in Germany. Just saying.

1. I saw an ad of Sprint on TV in which a guy made a time machine because he wanna get his iphone of 17 month later so that he can get out of the contract and get a new iphone. After the Sprint guy explained their promotion, the time machine made a Bing sound and the guy took something out of the time machine and ate it, which he claimed was the leftover of the next day’s dinner…

2. Jiankun was doing TA for Rama and had to do the answer for the homework. Because Rama was not happy with the answer, he made Jiankun redo it three times. Jiankun was like, “Damn, I am so busy this week.” Keerthana was like, “Whoever has to do the same homework three times is for sure busy…”

3. There is a lady in the building who is pretty nice to everybody and Jiankun likes to talk to her. And Jiankun joked she was his flirt buddy…

4. Following are the best designed spam mails I received ever. The first mail asked me to do survey for them and seriously put two $1 bills inside, promising another $5 if I do and return the survey.

Out of curiosity I did and returned the survey. They honored their promise. I am totally  impressed

1. JB asked me why a number of suspicious people who were my friends on Facebook requested to be his friend, which I didn’t know. He said, “I thought they may be little Chinese hotties that you wanted to share with me.” I was like, “No way. first of all they are not hotties. second of all even if they are, I am gonna keep them all for myself.. :)I think you made friends with the wrong guy…”

2. Jiankun and Keerthana were discussing about the food of Burma, a country which just changed its name from Myanmar. I was like, “Why did they change their name? Did they just get married?”

3. Annand said he left something in Ann Arbor and I joked with him by asking if he left his underpants there like, “Dude, if you wanna do it, you should do it right…”

4. Found this ad on the yellow book left at the door of my apartment. Looks like some business should never market itself by low cost…

1. Annand likes to hit on girls but doesn’t know how. So he talks only about cultures. I laugh at him. One day I asked him all of a sudden seriously, “Dude, talk to me. Talk some culture to me.”

2. Annand has many female friends. I joked with people saying “Annand has many friends with no benefits…”

3. When I was interning in Retia, a big amount of junk calls poured in all of sudden one day and people were wondering why. I made a guess like, “Maybe someone upload a hot photo on a porn site and left Retia’s number?”

4. I went to hospital a few months ago and first of all the nurse wanna measure my weight. I was like, “Damn, I just ate lunch..”

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Once upon a time in Chicago (the OhYeah version with no post procession)

74. Freakonomics -Steven Levitt 90%

A best seller of interesting topics and misunderstanding in daily life, including decline of US crime rate in 1990s was caused by the birth control decades before but not growth of economy, how to identify cheating teachers in public school, why some drug dealers had to stay with their parents and how and why the popularity of American first names fluctuate with time. Some critical thinking stuff to understand interesting phenomena.

73. Think like a Freak -Steven Levitt 90%

The same authors of the last book talking about suggestions of doing critical thinking to understand the world and make some use of it. Actually the authors have created a community of fans following their work including 5 millions of followers on podcast. I am not a super fan of the book, because some of arguments were not perfectly supported, but a big fan of the topics.

72. Fast Food Nation -Eric Schlosse 75%

A book talking about how fast food industry shaped American society. Fast food industry started with growth of auto industry and high way constructions in 1950s. It talked about not only the junk food, health issues and life styles, but also the farming industry, food process industry, restaurant industry and their employees and values toward life. A neat slice view of American society.

71. Blue Ocean Strategy -Chan Kim 85%

A business book of a fresh idea: the best way to compete is not to compete by not playing the old competition rules and creating some advantages in the measures not even in the horizon. I like the idea, but many examples fit the model too perfect probably of survival bias – meaning those who use similar strategies but failed can never be known. It might also be just one oversimplified explanation of complicated phenomena. At the same time, I wonder if the idea has any prediction values instead of simply good explanation of the past. Anyway the idea sounds neat and perhaps a new method to do the thinking.

70. Excellent Sheep -William Deresiewicz 85%

A book by a Yale professor contemplating current education system and the students who struggled to figure out their meanings of life. Credentialism pushed students building up things that help them get into schools as good they can or companies that pay as well as possible, even with no ideas the meaning of doing so. Many sharp opinions that make me think.

69. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future -Ashlee Vance 90%

An authorized biography of Elon Musk with detailed story about how Musk evolved into an unprecedented legend and still growing. Really nice read peeping into a iconic figure’s life.

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Click here for Books Written in English I have Read since 2011

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At Mackinac Bridge 3 months ago

1.1 There was a tennis ball in the office 3 years ago. We played it and made a lot of noise every day. Finally the professor downstairs had enough and came upstairs one day asking Jiankun politely, “Could you please do me a favor?” We were all puzzled until finally figuring what the favor is…

1.2 Annand joined the lab last year, found the tennis ball and started playing with it one day. Mohsen and I warned him of what happened 3 years ago but he didn’t believe it simply because we joked with him a lot. So I asked him, “If you don’t believe it, why do you think there is a tennis ball in the lab but nobody plays it?”

2. Hot Jordan was doing an internship in a construction company and he posed on FB like, “Well it’s 1:00 am and I’m off to go construct one last industrial sized manure pit” I replied like, ” I knew u r a good crap taker, but I didn’t know you are industrial good. I am impressed by your poop size, man.”

3. Sanaz asked Mohsen to open a container for her. Since I joked a lot about their marriage, this time I told Mohsen, “I don’t know why you wanna get married, but now I know why Sanaz does…”

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Yosemite, again, picturesque.

1.1 Annand was text chatting on his phone with a group of old friends, when I robbed his phone and found a girl thanked him for a birthday gift. I was so excited and told people Annand bought a girl a gift. Obviously that was not what Annand worried about, because that girl thanked him in the group chat…

1.2 We couldn’t help laughing and Annand looked upset. So I try to remind him of how bad it really was like, “Dude, is she the only girl in that group?” Finally he figured out, “Damn, now I need to buy every girl a gift in that group…”

2.1 Annand asked me to be his wing man in a public event so that he can talk to one girl, who he claimed was not attractive to him. So I asked him later, “Dude, if you don’t like how she looked, why did you wanna talk to her?” He was like, “I just wanna talk about cultures with her…” (It reminded me of Jiankun who wanna know a pretty Korean girl because he wanna know how to make Kimchi…)

2.2 I asked Annand further, “If you wanna talk about culture, why didn’t you talk to guys?” He went like, “I talked to guys.” I went totally crazy, “Dude, the only guys you talked to was me!!”

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New recruit: Pete who’s been bullied but still filled with sunshine.

1.1 Annand collected physiology data on me for his experiment and decided to buy me ice cream to show his gratitude for me “being a dot (a data point)” on his paper…

1.2 So we went to the diary store and both ordered a single spoon of ice cream. When we checked out, the girl cashier asked, “Two singles (spoon of ice cream)?” I was gonna pretend to hit on her by saying, “Yes, we are two singles…” but end up only saying “Yes, two singles”, because she was not my type…………… All right, the real truth is the punch line did not hit on me until 5 sec after the girl cashier asked. Next time..

2. Here is another psychology experiment I did before. I found: when two people either sitting face to face or on side of each other for a while during conversation, meeting or movie, if one of them changed his posture (for example start holding arms around himself or putting two hands on the back of his head), the other would tend to do the same. I actually did such an experiment on Marc (CEO of the company I interned last year) in a conference in NYC last year without informing him. The result confirmed my assumption. Sadly, that was the only experiment I did on this assumption.

3. I read a question someone asked a book’s author, “Did I miss a lot if I didn’t read your book?” The author answered like, “Independent study showed female readers who read my book tend to have greater sexual pleasure; male readers who read my book tend to have faster swimming sperms…”

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Laid back summer on Grand River

1. Annand showed me a girl’s photo and asked me what I thought of her. I told him, “Not bad, top 30%. But definitely good enough for you. You are top 95%…”

2. Chloe posted on FB like, “My cough and I are having the most dysfunctional relationship ever. One minute I thought it was out of my life for good, and the next minute it came running back to me taking my breath away.” I comforted her like, ” I hope your cough plays some hard-to-get…”

3.1 Annand likes to sing songs from time to time in the office. To be fun whenever he sang, I asked him, “Hey Annand, can you sing a song for me?” Unsurprisingly he said no and stopped singing. So I told him the truth, “Dude did you know what I just did to you? It’s a psychology experiment. When I asked you to sing a song for me, your feeling is that you are singing that song for me not for yourself, which is not worthwhile. So you stopped automatically.” And he couldn’t help laughing… #Psychology Experiment#

3.2 To be consistent, I also asked him later in the office like, “Hey dude, can you knock the desk for me?” and “Hey dude, can you laugh for me?” He did stop knocking the desk but not the laughing… Experiment failed… 😦

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Bike shaped bike racks. Good thinking.

68. Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration -Ed Catmull 90%

Ed Catmull is a co-founder and longtime CEO of Pixar, a legendary computer animated film studio. This is Ed’s contemplation of how to build a culture in an organization that can cultivate creativity. This is not such a book that full of perfectly correct nonsense, but full of critically justified insights. Everybody can be creative from time to time. The question is how to deliver controllable and on-demand creativity and creation.

67. Crystal Magnates: Nick Saban, Urban Meyer and the Principles of Dominance -Truman Alexander %80

I’ve been fascinated with college football and stories of star coaches, because they seemed to know how to deliver controllable success. This is a third party’s book about the secrets that behind two current biggest star coaches . Most of told inside the book was not new and sometimes ill supported. But a solid reminder of some principles that made someone different.

66. Street Smarts: An All-Purpose Tool Kit for Entrepreneurs -Norm Brodsky 85%

A book about fundamental principles of business model and suggestions on non-high tech companies based on the author’s firsthand experience. This book reads sincere and offers quite useful guidance at least for me,

65. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game -Michael Lewis

This book is a best seller concerning a real story of one MBL’s team manager outperforming those with huge budget by using statistics analysis. A movie starred by Brad Pitt was based on this book. An interesting way to interpreting things in an unorthodox manner based on mathematics and modeling, which I am quite interested in understanding my surroundings.

64. The 11 Laws of Likability: Relationship Networking . . . Because People Do Business with People They Like -Michelle Tillis LEDERMAN 70%

I can’t say I Love this book, because I was expecting a thorough scientific research why people tend to like others. Most of the book’s conclusions are either perfectly correct nonsense or way too subjective. However I am inspired by two of the book’s conclusions that people tend to like those who are similar to themselves and those who they are familiar with. Sounds about right.

63. Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way -Richard Branson 85%

This is an autobiography of an unorthodox billionaire starting from scratch. Fun story and quite an adventurer in the sense that he did many cool things such as trying to cross Atlantic on a ball0on carrier. Fun and cool life, even though I am not quite sure what I can get out of this book.

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Click here for Books Written in English I have Read since 2011

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Life is like a dick. When it becomes hard, just fuck it. (Yosemite, May. Again, Yosemite is beautiful.)

1. Xiaopeng was on a bus back from Chicago on a heavy snowy night. Because of an accident on high way, the bus got stuck for a long long time. People were not happy. One lady on the bus called the bus company and the one answering the phone asked what they can do for her. The lady was like, “You asked me what you can do for me? I need a helicopter!”

2. Jiankun accidentally made some Oink noise when yawning in the office and we all laughed. He tried to make himself look less embarrassed like, “I was sleepy.” I was like, “So you decided to become a pig?!”

3. I read a book by Richard Branson, who got married with his wife when their two children were already six or seven years old. So when his son heard another couple was getting married a few weeks later, he was like, “They can’t get married. They don’t even have a kid…”

4. Annand was always talking about hitting on girls, but never made any moves. Finally he admitted to us that he didn’t know how. I kidded him like, “I thought you were good at hitting on girls. It turned out you were only good at talking about hitting on girls dude..”

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Found this nice designed soup spoon in a restaurant. I like it.

1. When I was still living in Phoenix, Hot Jordan’s roomie James was gonna be Paul’s roomie for the next year, while Paul’s roomie John was gonna be Hot Jordan’s roomie for the next year. Hot Jordan was excited about called it “Roomie Swap”… (Think about Wife Swap)

2. I was checking out some unsalted roasted peanuts in a grocery store. The cashier told me she never ate them before asked me how they tasted like. Since they basically have not much flavor, I thought a little bit and told her, “It tastes like nothing…”

3. Jiankun always claimed to do different things and changed his mind frequently. So I made a comment in the office to kid him the other day like, “The only thing predictable about Jiankun is he’s unpredictable…”

4. Rama introduced me to other committee members for my comprehensive exam two years ago and claimed he didn’t know I had an honors degree in college when he recruited me. I told the other committee members like, “Well, that’s the bonus I gave him.”

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The library on Mackinac Island, small but homy. I like it.

1. The last time I visited hospital I chatted with the doctor and asked her where she learned all the stuff. She told me she was once googling a disease of a patient using smart phone in the hallway and got caught by the patient… I couldn’t help laughing and pretended to be the doctor comforting the patient like, “Well, good luck with your treatment…”

2. When interning in Retia Medical, I said goodbye to people before leaving for home one day. Keerthana replied me like, “Goodbye, let us know if you wanna kill yourself…”

3. We were discussing about receiving money for wedding. Mohsen said it was too bad for him unable to make money in that way since he’s married. I reminded him like, “You can get divorced and get married again~”

4.I asked Hot Jordan why he went home to see his girlfriend every weekend when I was still living in Phoenix. He said because he liked her. I kidded him like, “It’s a lame lie man. You should have figured out something better…”

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Optimus Prime in action…

1. James and Beth have been dating for seven or eight years and announced their engagement on Facebook the other day. I replied and congratulated them like, “This relationship has been going too fast… You kids should take the time to know each other and slow it down~ 🙂 jk, congratulations guys!!”

2. My mum stayed with me for 6 months last year. A few months after she left, people asked me how I was doing. I told them like, “I am still recovering from the damage my mum’s done on me…”

3. I watched an episode of Friends when Phoebe walked in and pushed down a box of cereal standing on the table like, “Oh, I am a cereal (serial) killer…”

4. I told Jian I met a bear at Yosemite (click here for details) like, “The moment I saw the bear, I was ready to run.” Jian was like, “That’s useless. Bears run faster than you.” I was like, “Dude as long as I run faster than others, I will be OK…”

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What irresistible boxers…

1. Kim was my Phoenix housemate and is currently a PhD student in PSU. She told people on her Facebook that one student in her TA class made a comment on her semester assessment form like, “This woman is a FEMINIST. I felt trapped by her liberal ideology all semester long. Help.” …

2.1 I went to hospital and the doctor asked me if I was married? I joked with her like, “No, I am still happy…” (To clarify, I said that only trying to be funny and I still wanna get married.)

2.2 I was chatting with that doctor and she asked me if I can stand the winter in Michigan. I joked with her like, “Actually I like winter. I enjoy staying inside thinking about how much people are suffering outside…”

2.3 There was a skeleton model hanging in the hospital as below. I asked the doctor like, “Oh, what happened to that guy?” She was like, “Well, he didn’t do what we asked him to do…”

1. Diffusion of innovation -Everett M. Rogers 90%

It’s a mind blowing book and a systematic research report about how and why new ideas, technologies and innovations get accepted or rejected by a community. Many examples dissected why even good innovations are not welcome for some cases. Great book for people who try to understand people, sociology and psychology for future guidance in both career and life.

2. Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time –Howard Schultz 90%

It’s a history about how Starbucks started up and became a huge success worldwide by 1999 written by Starbucks’ founder and CEO. I was fascinated because it recorded how the founder built an emperor basically from scratch. It is inspiring since I am working on my scratch. (The author has another book “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul” about how the author saved Starbucks from a series crises at the onset of 21st century, which is less attractive to me simply because I have no emperor to save..)

3. Swoosh: The Unauthorized Story of Nike and the Men Who Played There -J. B. Strasser 90%

It’s a history about how Nike started up, beat competitors such as Adidas and Puma and dominated the sport wears in the world from scratch. Quite detailed and exciting stories. I enjoyed it because of the same reason I like last book: The only thing I have now is scratch.

4. Uganda Be Kidding Me -Chelsea Handler 75%

Chelsea Handler is a wild female comedian and TV producer. It’s a travel log of her and her friends in Africa recording many hilarious episodes. This is an awesome book for fun and time-killing. I watched some of her stand-ups on Youtube which are funny and wild.

5. The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal -Jim Loehr 95%

This is a great book to improve people’s performance in life and career. The idea is to work in the highest intensity and relax or regain energy to the maxim for life and next round of work. The best performers do not need to know how to exhaust all energy in greatest intensity during work but also how to relax and regain the energy efficiently. It is quite inspiring.

6. How Good Do You Want to Be?: A Champion’s Tips on How to Lead and Succeed at Work and in Life -Nick Saban 80%

Nick Saban is one of the current top two college football coaches. He wrote this book to introduce how and why he became elite in what he was doing. Most inside the book is just common sense, which turned out to be quite convincing because the author’s writing style and credits in his career.

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Click here for Books Written in English I have Read since 2011

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Haven’t been to many celebrated beaches before, but the one on Mackinac Island was the best I’ve got so far.I

1. I was at Qiong’s Phd defense 1.5 years ago, after which someone mentioned that USA was much restrictive with Irian men’s visas than women’s, because they believe women were less likely to be terrorists. I was like, “Well, never underestimate women…”

2. My mum lived with me for 6 months a few months before. One day she was making dumplings and asked me which of the two dumplings she just made looked better like, “If these two dumplings are girls, which one would you choose, son?”

3. For a while whenever people in the office were planning to say something bad to kid each other, we put a bunch of meaningless expressions beforehand just to make it more dramatic. For example, if I wanna joke with Jiankun, I would say, “To be honest, no offense, btw, just saying, FYI, I think your clothes look ugly today…”

4. I went to a class which we wondered if was given by Kallil, a distinguished professor of school. After I came back, Mohsen asked me if that was given by Kallil. I was like, “Well, I don’t know how Kallil looked. But he said he was Kallil. I assumed he really was..”

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Took a shot of the two cuties because of their cuteness, without being able to read between animals / lines: “Moo Shu Pork” … Obviously this is what Moo Shu Pork is talking about…

1. I was having breakfast at a hotel the other day. The lady serving the food was stirring the scrabbled egg and joked with me like, “Oh, I am making a mess here (referring to the scrabbled egg). I like to make a mess in my life.” I joked back like, “Well, my life is a mess already…”

2. I was at a seminar. The chair told us some of the presenters were not here and the session schedule has to be changed. However the chair still started the session on time by saying, “Anyway, let’s begin the session now and not ruin the schedule immediately..”

3. Annand owned me some money and he forgot. He apologized to me and I joked with him like, “That’s OK, man. It’s easier to forget owning somebody’s money than being owned..”

4. Before Keerthna joined the group for PhD, people discussed about where she should sit in the office. Since she had to sit behind me, I joked with people like, “Good, now it’s easier for her to put her knife on my back..”

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I saw this friendly sign reminding people of their children in a pie bar the other day. I like it.

1. I was watching the retirement interview of Shaq O’Neal on Youtube, on which he told people movingly, “I will miss my basketball, my fans and my free throws…” (He was well known as a really bad free throw shooter and missed tons of free throws in his career…)

2. Jian went to bed really late around 4am. Di was leaving for China and people asked Jian if he can see Di off at 5am the other day. Normal people who couldn’t do it would probably say it is too early, but Jian was like, “I can’t. It is too late…”

3. When I was still living in Phoenix, I kidded Lizzy by asking, “Lizzy, are you a lesbian?” (I have totally no offense to Lesbians at all, BTW.) She was like, “What are you talking about Barton? No. God No.” I was like, “Are you sure, Lizzy? Are you sure?”

4. I drove to Lancester PA and stayed in an old fashioned motel last weekend, which offered “Free Adult Videos” and claimed having delivered “hospitalities for over 50 years”…

1. Jiankun smokes cigarette and we tried to convince him to quit. One day he showed us a pack of “Organic cigarette” and told me that thing was totally healthy. I kidded him like, “So why don’t you eat some organic shit?”

2. I landed in San Franscisco Airport for an interview in Bay area one week ago and met a lady while waiting to take a train for car rental. The lady told me her husband got on the last train but she didn’t. She joked with me like, “After getting on the next train, I need to find a car and a husband, then I will be in good shape…”

3. I hiked Yosemite with Qing Yang last weekend and one of the trails has some horses’ defecation. For one small segment of trail we had to step on either dried defecation or wet ones. I told Qing, “Dude, I was just forced to make a decision between stepping on old crap and fresh crap…”

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I visited Yosemite with Qing Yang last weekend and here are the highlights.
a. Seriously met a bear who sat on the trail and looked at us 25 yards away for 10 seconds… Eventually it was scared away by people coming behind us and walked into the woods. Sadly we didn’t have a chance to take a photo.
b. Really picturesque
c. Learned how to shoot someone’ legs longer than they really are as shown below…

1. After the midterm exam Prof Radha asked and joked with people in the class like, “Anybody has any questions about the grading of the exam? Come and find me after class, I will deduct more points…”

2. We attended a seminar hosted by Rama and he asked us how we liked it later that day. I was like, “There were even no cookies or coffee.. That was definitely the worst seminar ever…”

3. We were discussing about other groups doing similar research to ours. Since Rama was impressed by one group in India and one group in MIT, he was like, “Yeah, Indians are good. MIT is also good.” I was like, “Come’n Rama, you are both indian and MIT…” (Rama is an American born Indian and got Phd from MIT.)

4. I was checking out at Meijier the other day. After I made the payment, the girl cashier gave me the following bunch of coupons and smiled at me like, “They are all yours…”

1. We were discussing about what we were doing in 2003 and people tried to pretend to be younger than others. Nan said he was still in elementary school in 2003 and someone said he was still in kinder garden. I was like, “I was still a sperm in 2003…”

2. I was watching a David Letterman Late Night Show on Youtube interviewing Tina Fey. Letterman said, “Tina has been on this show for over 20 times.” And Fey joked like, “That’s because people canceled on him a lot and I live just nearby…”

3. There was a blind date thing on campus the other day and Annand asked if I would like to go. Since I said no, he asked me why. I was like, “Because people can be ugly…”

4. I caught a cold, had had a running nose for days and used a lot of tissue papers. Earlier today I told people in the office like, “Based on the amount of tissue paper I used today, I think I am getting better now…”

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MSU’s basketball stadium looks a bowl…

1.1 I went back to Phoenix house to check people out and hung out in Cliff’s room, when Cliff told people Lizzy asked him to wake her up from a nap at 9pm which was right then. So we went to Lizzy’s room, opened the door and tried to get her up. Since she was so reluctant to get up, I was like, “Come’n Lizzy, get up. I wanna see you naked…”

1.2 We hung out in Lizzy’s room after she finally got up. After some catching-ups had been done, I wanna leave. Lizzy was like, “Good to see you, Barton. Sorry for not being naked…” I can’t help laughing and replied like, “That’s OK. Next time, Lizzy. Promise me…”

2. I live in Spartan Village near school with a small train station nearby. I was taking a nap yesterday at noon and a weak earthquake of 4.0 happened and woke me up. Since I never expected an earthquake in Michigan, all I was thinking was, “What kind of train is it? It’s pretty good…”

3. I have been cooking a lot for a while and bought about 10 lbs of beef at a Chinese grocery store the other day. When I was checking out, the girl cashier was like, “Do you seriously cook? I thought guys don’t cook.” I was like, “Well can’t find a GF without cooking…”

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Fresh Thyme a grocery store was grand open near my home. I love it. The variety, quality, freshness and price of the food are super good, while the store is decorated with tons of fun stuff like this.

1. I was watching a Youtube video, in which a buffalo was attacking a lion. Someone made a comment under like, “Just imagine getting attacked by your dinner…”

2. I read news on ESPN saying Philadelphia Eagles (a NFL team) decided to sign a contract with Tim Tebow (a quarter back). Meanwhile ESPN made a comment like, “With the addition of Tim Tebow, the Eagles have under contract three of the five worst Quarterbacks in the league over the past five years…”

3. Prof. Radha asked a question about something about variance and nobody bothered to answer. He was joking like, “If somebody doesn’t know the answer, I will call university and evict him from school right now…”

4. Jiankun saw Keerthana writing and commented like, “Oh, your writing looks similar to Rama’s.” I thought about it and was like, “Huh, it doesn’t sound a compliment…”

1. I was signing a lease last year before moving into the current apartment and the lady asked me to sign my initials at the end of every single paragraph of the lease. After I signed like 30 something initials, I complained to the lady like, “Oh man, I used up all my signatures for the rest of year…”

2. We were in the engineering symposium and Jinyao tried but couldn’t open the water bottle. So she asked her male friend to open it for her (it’s one of Chinese girls’ thing to be feminine). I was like, “Obviously your boyfriend spoil you too much. I think you shouldn’t squeeze the bottle lid using two fingers when trying to open it. If I were your boyfriend, I will buy a box of water bottle for you to practice…” And Jinyao was like, “I feel so sorry for your future girlfriend…”

3. MSU’s online learning web address became http://www.d2l.msu.edu, which means “Desire to Learn”. Prof. Radha told us he thought it was “Drink to Learn”…

4. Scott complained about being pulled over by police the other day on Facebook and I comforted him like, “Don’t worry, man. I am sure things will become worse…”

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Xiaoxing, Xiaofeng and I went to see the light house in Feb and here is another shot I took.

1. Buckeye Rebirth: Urban Meyser, an Inspired Team and a New Era at Ohio State -Bill Rabinowitz 85%

I love following various sports for a number of reasons. One of them is sports basically are a model of life. Both of them are about growth, collaboration, competition, control and influence. How some mediocre players can become super stars and how some supers stars become mediocre and even despised. It’s all happening in real life too. This is a book about Urban Meyser, an outstanding coach of Ohio State college football. I love him because after following his stories and watching him talk and behave, I kinda felt like that someone actually seriously know how to be outstanding, which for most people is a totally random process. This is book about him. I like it.

2. Quiet: The power of Introverts in a world that can’t Stop Talking -Susan Cain 85%

It’s a book explaining how some became introverts physiologically and why introverts should be valued as much as extroverts. To be honest, even though I am able to appear as extrovert as anyone, I am an introvert. I like this book. It helped me to understand myself more.

3. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future -Peter Thiel 95%

This is a must read by Paypal’s cofounder and series investor with great insights about how to evaluate business ideas, gauge their potentials and design the corresponding business strategies.

4. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses -Eric Ries 80%

I like the point which the book was trying to make about starting up: make a basic demo of the product and improve products adaptively to fit the customers’ needs. Obviously it is not the only ideology to succeed compared to what Steve Jobs believe (People don’t really know what they want, until you put the products in front of them; It’s not the customers’ job to know what they want.) But it’s another way to look at things and agrees with what Facebook believes (Finish is better than perfect.)

5. How to Win Friends & Influence People -Dale Carnegie 85%

It’s probably the first self-help book ever written over 60 years ago with millions of copies sold. The author and the book are without question legendary with most of the points made still insightful about how to make others like you.

6. Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader -Brent Schlender 90%

This book is a Steve Jobs’ biography written by an unauthorized author compared to Walter Isaacson. However this book makes me feel like this unauthorized author may deserve more to write about Steve Jobs because of the closeness between him and Jobs. Many more details than the one written by Walter Isaacson. I like it.

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Here is the list of English written books I have read since 2011.

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A small pier at Houston

1. I visited the hospital for some reason and I didn’t hear the nurse calling my name because I was working on the phone. Finally I heard and the nurse thought she didn’t pronounce my name right and asked me how to do it right. I apologized like, “Oh you are doing fine. I was just looking at the phone. Sorry to make you feel bad about your pronunciation…”

2. On that nurse’s desk I saw this Einstein, which I like a lot.

3. A nurse came in and told me she was gonna run some tests on me, which based on her, may make me a little bit uncomfortable. I kidded her like, “That’s OK. I am uncomfortable all the time…”

4. When the physician came in, he told he needed to do something that “might make me not like him.” I kidded him like, “Don’t worry. I don’t like you any way…”

1, School sent all students a text message saying there is a natural gas leakage happening in one building on campus the other day. Keerthana was like, “OMG, it must smell really bad down there.” I was like, “Well, natural gas leakage doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gassy…”

2. Jiankun got a stationary bike and told us he would go home earlier the other day to bike in a park. I was like, “Dude, are you gonna ride your stationary bike in the park?”

3. Anand is from India and he ironically shakes his head whenever he wanna say yes. One day he was talking on the phone and shook his head again when he tried to express his agreement. I was like, “Dude, you don’t have to shake your head over the phone. People can’t see you…”

4. India people are crazy about cricket. There has been a cricket world cup and India lost in the semi-final playoff the other day. I am not a fan of cricket but still trying to kid Anand by claiming to people in the office that, “India lost in the cricket world cup. I don’t feel like working today…

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Obviously this sign makes me feel so much safer about this zone…

1. I changed my Facebook profile photo and here is the conversation between Hot Jordan and me.

2. There are five ex-Phoenicians currently living in Denver. During spring break, Zach, Tom, Jordan and John visited them and had a great time. Zach posted the following on his Facebook to show his gratitude, “Thank you to the fantastic Phoenix Force Five for taking us in, drinking us up, smoking us down, and booting us out of this wonderful state…” I replied like, “They must be the legendary Furious Five…” (From Kung Fu Panda)

3. Keerthana was complaining she had got an ear inffection the other day in the office. I kidded her like, “Maybe because you talked too much and your ears got tired of it. It’s a sign Keerthana. Take it…”

4.I was at an eye doctor’s to get contacts. Since I had been waiting for a while, the girl who accommodated me said, “Thank you for your patience.” I kidded her like, “No problem. I am a patient here anyway~”

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(Brighten the screen for a better look) First time to see the aurora, not as good as in Arctic area, but super enjoy the feeling of chasing the aurora to the north with friends. One thing crossed from the list for sure and save a trip to Alaska in winter to see aurora, a package valued around $2000…

1. Lauren described her experience being stalked by someone when she was walking on the street early in the morning on facebook. It was pretty intense story and at the end she encouraged herself like, “… Anyway good job not getting raped tonight…”

2. I asked Keerthana about something about the data. Since she is not sure about the answer, she told me, “I am not sure, but most likely it’s XXX.” I was like, “Most likely? That’s so scientific. I am sure you can publish a lot of papers in this way…”

3. Annand is a new student and I joked with him by telling him, “I am always trying to be first. Even to eat shit, I wanna be the first one to eat…”

4. I was trying to return something in a store and the lady asked me if I had the receipt. I knew I had it but still kid her like, “I hope so…”

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Water Wall at the medical center of Houston

1. Jiankun always claims he is hungry, sleepy or tired in the office. The other day all of a sudden, he claimed to Mohsen and me like, “I am not hungry!” I was like, “Is it supposed to be news?”

2. I went out bowling in an event organized by engineering school. When introducing each other, I told people what research I was doing. One of them was like, “Oh, that’s cool…” I kidded them like, “Well, it will be cooler if it works…”

3. Devin and Spencer are living in Colorado now and Devin posted something on Phoenix Alumni group like, “Just sold some legal weed to John, Zach and Jordan!!( Three previous Phoenicians who were visiting Devin). That’s all!” Teddy replied by asking, “Where is Spencer?” I was like, “I think he’s getting high, of course, legally…”

4. I was auditing a course and professor was introducing a theorem named after a Netherland mathematician – Hoeffding. After putting “Hoeffding” on board, the professor put two dots above each letter of “Hoeffding” saying, “I guess we have to make his name Netherland official in the way…”

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Ti’s wedding in my camera. Thinking about being a part time wedding photographer to spread joy..

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1.1 I visited Houston for Ti’s wedding and served as the best man of Chao, Ti’s Husband. During the wedding rehearsal the priest told Chao, “Next I am gonna say a bunch of word and ask you a question. You just need to say ‘I do’…” I was like, “Dude, this is cheating…”

1.2 Luke, another best man was super careful with his tie, redid the tie many times and was still working on it. I kidded him like, “Well. Luke needs another 20 times to believe his tie is perfect…”

2.   I visited NASA Houston Center and the tour to the Apollo Mission Control Center happened after people climbed a stair of 86 steps. So the tour guide started the tour by saying, “Well everybody, welcome to the NASA cardio program…”

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Super excited to visit NASA Houston Center carrying one of the greatest science and technology achievements of whole human beings.

Independence, one of the only two remaining space shuttles

Apollo Mission Control Center (in service in 1960s and 1970s as the control center for Apollo Moon Landing Program)

There has been a census in the men’s room which we use every day:

GIVE YOUR POOP A MOVIE TITLE
-The Green Mile; -Apocalypse Now; -a million smelly pieces; -the loudest yard; -8mile; -Napolean Dynamite; -Titanic; -the big lebowski; -stuart little; -children of the corn; -beauties and beast; -Harry plopper; -the big dirty; -olympus has fallen;  -here comes the boom; -Avatar the last shit sender; -star wars; -water world; -back door sluts; -the great blumpkin charlie brown; -chariots of fire; -terminator; – blade; -建国大业; -The Gravity; -Unstoppable; -Unbroken; -Fury

FYI, my poo’s name is -Fast and Furious…

1 Laurie is a department secretary. Saturday was Valentine’s Day and I saw her in department office on Friday. She reminded me like, “Don’t forget to get yourself a valentine, honey.” I was like, “Oh thanks. I am working on that…”

2 Meagan is another department secretary who sends out emails whenever there is free food in the department office. I dropped by the department office, saw some food to give out and therefore helped myself. Meagan saw me and kidded me like, “What are you doing?” I was like, “Oh, I am trying to get some food before you send out emails for people to come…”

3 Charli complained on facebook like, “dad’s the only guy to wish me a happy valentines day complete with spongebob candy. god bless.” I comforted her like, ” I did not get a valentine wish at all,,, even from a guy…”

4 I was checking out some Chinese vegetables at the Meijier. Since the girl cashier didn’t know some of their names and had a hard time to find their bar codes, she apologized to me. I comforted like, “Don’t worry. You are not Chinese. You are allowed to not know…”

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Sunset at St Joseph

1. We were in Chicago for a conference last August and walked in Downtown Chicago. Both Mohsen and I claimed if by any chance we got robbed as long as we ran faster than Jiankun, we would be OK. Jiankun was like, “I knew you guys so well and therefore prepared $300 in my pocket before coming to Chicago for the robbers just in case to buy my life…” Mohsen and I were so impressed..

2. Keerthna accidentally knocked over a bottle of water and the water was spilled on the carpet. I was like, “Oh, Keerthna just wet the carpet…”

3. We were discussing about someone was sometimes too optimistic and sometimes too pessimistic in a restaurant. I was like, “Yeah, that’s his period..”

4. I saw a post on internet saying, “When we were kids, we tried to be cool kids, even we were just cool aids..”

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We went to Grand Haven and St Joseph to see the lighthouse and I got some good shots. Here is one of them.

1.1 I audited a number of courses this semester. Annand said he couldn’t do that because it would be too boring. I was like, “Dude, you’ve got the wrong goal. The goal should not be to learn stuff, but to ask questions in the class and confuse the professors…”

1.2 In one class the professor said something funny and people all laughed. Since I didn’t get it and therefore asked the professor to say it again, when the professor told me, “Never mind”. I was like, “No, I mind…”

2. Annand finished his Phd Qualifier Exam the other day and asked me where he can buy a notebook the next day of the exam. So I asked him, “So you decided to start study now? No offense, but I think it may be too late dude…”

3. We were discussing about something and Jiankun said people in our area would think it was bullshit, but others may just think it’s useless. But what’s worse than bullshit?” I was like, “Useless bullshit?”

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Can’t resist the damage caused by aging and finally decided to use beauty mask… Hopefully it won’t be too late…

1. Open Heart: The Radical Surgeons who Revolutionized Medicine -David Cooper 80%

A book about the development history of open heart surgery. I read it not only because I wanna know more about cardio research status quo in hospital, but also try to understand how innovation takes place under different circumstances. The writer interviews most of the legendary surgeons who pushed cardiac surgeries forward. The book met my expectations.

2. Reinventing American Health Care -Ezekiel Emanuel 85%

A book thoroughly introduced the history and problems of American health care system as well as the introduction to ObamaCare. A little bit over thorough and over detailed to me.

3. Bad Or, the Dumbing of America -Paul Fussell 30%

Recomended by Yonghao Ruo. A big disappointment though. The book listed the dumb and irrational things done by Americans. Full of complaints without any constructive suggestions. Whiners are winners and so much easier to complain than to do something useful. So boring that I could not even finish the book.

4. Liar’s Poker -Michael Lewis   85%

A fun book to read about an insider look about what it’s like to work on Wall Street. The book reads depressing somehow due to the dark side of working on Wall Street depicted by the book, which I am sure about personally.

5. Thinking, Fast and Slow -Daniel Kahneman 95%

A Nobel Prize winner’s book about the author and his collaborator’s work interpreting the brain’s fast working mode and slow working mode as well as many irrationalities people hold in daily life. A must read. Because the book is pretty thorough, it may be somehow wordy. However a summary of the book is also available on http://www.amazon.com.

6. 100 Most Significant Americans Of All Times -Smithsonian 100%

A really awesome book for me to catch up with American History and culture. There is no better and easier way to understand a country’s history and culture than to follow each significant individual’s life. Really nice read and lots of information.

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For a complete list of The Books Written in English I have Read since 2011 please click here.

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Protective net at the MSU hockey arena~

1. Since I have done standup comedian show before and agreed to serve as Ti’s male maid of honor for her wedding, she asked me if I would like to perform at her wedding. I denied her request but didn’t tell her the real reason: “I only know about dirty jokes, which are probably not best jokes to tell in someone’s wedding…”

2. Yi’ou shared one photo of her new fitness bracelet on social media with her comment like, “If a woman can’t control her weight, how can she even control her life” trying to show people her determination to lose weight. I kidded her by replying like, “Actually I think you problem is not being unable to control weight, but being able to control weight so well that your weight has been maintained at a constant level…”

3. John asked me if I have a girl friend and I told him, “No, man. Life is tough..” He told me, “Often tougher with than without, buddy.” I know he’s joking so I replied like, “Don’t scare me, man.. people told me love is the most beautiful thing in the world..” Jack, John’s friend was like, “They lie, Barton! It’s hell on earth pal…”

4. I have a paper in waste water (It’s funny because I am doing research in cardiovascular signal processing). The other day people were complaining about the drinking water in the building. I showed my concerns by joking like, “I would like to help you with you guys, but I am only an expert in waste water…”

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Holiday of Downtown Detroit

1. Rama is American Indian, who just hired two new Indians students in the lab in addition to two Chinese and one Iranian student. I came to the conclusion to others the other day like, “I think Rama is trying to find his origin. The next student of our lab is probably gonna be a Chimpanzee…”

2. Anand kidded me by lying to Keerthana that I was gay. I kidded back like, “Don’t worry, dude. She knows…”

3.1 I was playing soccer and texting my friend. Since my team was losing and my teammates blamed me for doing that. I kidded them like, “Come on, I am texting my bf..”

3.2 Later that day, Shaochen hid my cell phone away just to let me focus on playing soccer. The next time we played soccer people kidded me by asking how my bf was doing. I kidded back like, “Oh he broke up with me because I didn’t reply his message on time because Shaochen hid my cell phone last time…”

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Craftsman’s shoe shop

1. I visited one Ford plant and the tour guide told me they used an electrical screw driver so that every screw used would be recorded for manufacture quality control reasons. I was like, “So that people will not screw up?”

2. Mohsen was quite surprised and insecure to know google had predicted info about him and listed the info on google’s website under his account the other day. So he deleted all the predicted info under his account. I was like, “Good. Now you don’t even know what they know about you…”

3. Qiong’s professor required her to start working at 9am every day and sent him an email once she arrived in the office. (I personally think this requirement is crazy.) Anyway one day, she was late and still at home at 9am, when she received an email from her professor asking where she was. She had to lie like, “I am in the lab.” Her professor was like, “Me too…”

4. I went to Detroit zoo and saw a punching bag hanging in the kangaroo area. So I asked the tour guide like, “Is it for the kangaroos to practice punching?” The guide was like, “Yes.. But they prefer to punch each other. There is more feedback from that…”

1. Anand is from India. Whenever expressing “Yes” during conversations, he hilariously shook his head in an Indian way… This is so funny and therefore I learned to do the same. Mohsen was like, “Even Rama does the same.” Anand was surprised like, “Really? I didn’t notice.” I explained to him like, “That’s because you were shaking your head at the same time and you guys just got synchronized!”

2. Charli asked if she could put me as her reference for job hunting. I kidded her like, “Sure Charli. You know I can lie for you, Charli. I can do anything for you (pause) including lying…”

3. Rama told us he worked at home on Sunday, because he needed a change from his office. So I kidded him by asking, “Did your wife know you need a change?”

4. Greg is a technician in ECE’s electronic lab. One day on his way back to the lab from the restroom, he saw someone looking around in the hall way and therefore asked, “Are you looking for one of the guys in the lab?”

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I visited Ford Rouge Factory on Christmas Eve. Amazing experience!

I visited a farm of 12,000 milking cows last weekend thanks to David who worked there. It was super cool and I loved it. The whole farm didn’t look fancy, but every bit of it was well designed. Most of the food for the cows was grown and processed on the farm land. The defecation of the cows was collected and returned to fertilize the land. The food is a mixture of various ingredients and nutrients optimal for the cows to milk. The baby cows were sold to other specialized farms to grow and the adult cows were bought back for milking. A huge facility to run, a complex project to manage and a balanced system to maintain. It is a peek of American agriculture. Super cool. I was excited to take a glance.

One of the barns holding 1000ish cows each

Cows eating inside the barn

Cows waiting to get on the milking stage

Cows on the milking stage with milk collected by the vacuum pumps

Half of the baby cows born for one day

Grinded corns for the food of the cows. The corns were grown on the farm. Normally the stored food is good enough feed the cows for two years.

Dried alfalfa for the food of the cows. The dried alfalfa doesn’t look fancy but smells really good. And they were also grown on the farm.

Dried grass for the food of the cows. Also grown on the farm.

Farm land to grow the food for the cows with an irrigation machine showing

A defecation collection truck pouring the defecation into reservoirl All the defecation will be returned to the farm land as fertilizer

1. We were discussing about the fact that people have to give money to the bride and bridegroom for their wedding. I told people that I would try to know as many people as possible before getting married to maximize the profit of the wedding…

2. I saw Anand hanging around in the hall way and asked him what he was doing. He told me he was fishing for girls. I kidded him like, “Good, but you are wearing a wrong outfit man…”

3. We were waiting in a restaurant for some people to come probably a couple of years ago. Yujing was a little bit annoyed by the waiting and ask me “What should we do?” I kidded him, “You can pay the bill if you like…”

4. http://www.163.com reported data from a top porn website about how long its users in each country spent watching the porn on average for each visit, titled “Who lasts longest…” Surprisingly users from China are among the top performers in the world with an average around 14 mins. One Chinese dude replied on http://www.163.com like, “Obviously that’s a mistake.. 10 out of those 14 mins were spent buffering data in China…”

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I went back to Phoenix for the classic secret Santa Party and I served as the Santa. As always super fun in Phoenix.

I picked my favorite jokes of past few years made by myself the other day. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Power of accumulation for the growth! (And here is the link~)

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Chilling with people in the office is one of the beauties for PhD. Lots of joy, relaxation and learning… (From left to right: my feet, Jiankun’s feet and Mohsen’s feet..)

Here are those funny during the speeches in UM I attended last week as mentioned in my last post.

1. BCG’s CEO got his bachelor degree from UM but MBA from Harvard. When the chair introduced him to the audience, she was like, “Mr. Lesser got his Bachelor degree from University of Michigan and MBA from (pause) another school…”

2. Twitter’s CEO Dick is quite funny.

2.1 When the chair introduced him to audience like, “Dick got his Bachelor degree from UM, started up a company XXX which was sold to Google. He is now serving as the CEO of Twitter…” The chair would like to continue but Dick interrupted him by talking to the audience like, “Now you can clap…” And people laughed and clapped.

2.2 During the Q&A session, people talked through the MIC. Because the sound was heard from all the direction in the auditorium and Dick had a hard time figuring out where the speaker was. Again, he couldn’t figure out where the speaker was even after the speaker started asking question.” So Dick looked around and was like “God, you are everywhere…”

2.3 A student asked a question about Dick’s opinion on another project of Jack Dorsal, Twitter’s founder. Dick was like, “Jack is my boss. Therefore I think that project was great…”

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Captain Penguin found his beloved daughter…

1. Hillary had used 90% of the phone data quota with nearly 2 weeks to go before the end of the billing cycle. The owner of the family plan kidded her by suggesting her “get her shit straight” on Facebook. I made a comment like, “I personally don’t think getting shit straight is an easy job…”

2. I was ordering some food at the cafeteria of a shopping mall and took out my phone to take a photo of the one Iranian food counter. One of the guys working there waved his hand trying to get my attention and make me take a photo of him. I kidded him like, “No man. You are too ugly for my camera…”

3. Harsha told me there are thousands of gods in India. I was like, “Is it because there are too many people in India and that’s the amount of gods needed to get you guys in order?”

4. In India, the bride family needs to give the bridegroom family a lot of money for the wedding. I knew Harsha had been married with his wife for a while, so I was quite surprised to learn he got married one more time with his wife. He explained to me later the difference between getting married legally and religiously. I was like, “Good to know… I thought you were trying to marry twice to make more money…”

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I attended two speeches given by Rich Lesser, BCG’s CEO and Dick Costolo, Twitter’s CEO at UM. Rich’s speech was somehow bla, while Dick’s speech was quite entertaining and inspiring. It turned out Dick used to be a standup comedian in Chicago before making contribution in Silicon Valley. I was quite impressed by their speech capacity. Need to improve my own for sure. (Many thanks to Wenkai’s info about the speeches and awesome lunch,)

1. As Ti’s male Maid of Honor, I booked flight tickets for her wedding and informed her like, “Hey I booked the flight but did not buy the insurance for the tickets. You’d better try not to cancel the wedding…”

2. I went to a party thrown by Zack and met a bunch of Phoenix people, which was pretty fun. Since I had to leave early, people insisted carrying me out of the house. In the end, Andy apologized to me like, “I am sorry to touch your butt man.” I comforted him like, “Oh don’t worry man. That one was for free…”

3. During my stay in Phoenix, I set the password for one of wifi routers as “LoveBarton”. Since I moved out a few months ago, people told me someone set another wifi routers’ password as “IHateBarton”… Praise God, people also told me the router of “IHateBarton” is not working while the one of “LoveBarton” is still working just fine!

4. Six months ago I had to take some stuff with me for a conference. Keerthana accused me like, “Mingwu has a lot of baggage…” I didn’t know that was a saying and it got me so good that I fought back by saying, “No! I only have one backpack and one poster…”

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Life’s so good…

1. Rama invited us to his house to watch the football game between OSU and MSU. Since I’ve got the master degree from OSU and currently working on Phd in MSU, I wore an OSU hoodie and an MSU hat there. When people asked, I told them, “No matter who wins the game, I am gonna be a winner today…” -I am glad that nobody fought me back by saying, “No matter who losses the game, you are a loser…”

2. Rama came upstairs to see if Mohsen had one of his books, while Mohsen was not in the office and Rama wondered if the book was in Mohsen’s drawer. I told Rama, “You can search Mohsen’s drawer if you like.” He was like, “No, I don’t wanna search his drawer without his permission.” I was like, “So you want me to search his drawer instead?” He was like, “Yeah…”

3. I met a lady who claimed to be a professor the other day. So I asked her, “What are you professing about?”

4. I shared a video on Facebook. Hot Jordan made a comment like, “This is cool, but I also think it’s fake.” I replied him like, “Dude, what you said is fake, but I also think it’s cool…”

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1. Ti asked me to be her male maid of honor for her wedding in the beginning of next year… I said yes after confirming no need of being dressed in a skirt…

2. Baby kangaroo having dinner…

1. Jiankun found a girlfriend and bought tickets to Hawaii the other day. Anand asked how much were the tickets and was surprised to know the price. I made a comment to him like, “Dude, there is no free fuck in the universe…”

2. We were playing soccer and I asked a guy about his name. He told me it’s Anuz. Because its pronunciation is kinda weird to me, I asked, “Dude, do you have an easier name?” David was trying to help out like, “You can call him A.” I kidded like, “How about asshole?”

3. Afeifei broke his knee when playing soccer with us a few weeks ago. I went to his office to see how he was doing two days later. He joked with me by saying I was a bad friend because I didn’t care about him enough. I kidded him like, “Dude, I am not even your friend. How can I be your bad friend?…”

4. Scott was Sarah’s boyfriend in Phoenix house. One day Sarah’s mum dropped by Phoenix and took a tour in the kitchen. Scott saw her and said Hi to her. I kidded Scott like, “By the way, I am also here. How come I didn’t get a Hi?”

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1. I watched a half of the World Series 2014 in the past two weeks. My first time to watch baseball. Pretty intense and fun games. Just wanna mark it.

2. My only recruit in the past two years!! -Captain Penguin posing with Private WZ (right) and Private WZ ‘s Daddy (left) on the media day..

1. Before my first marathon, I thought my nipples were too sensitive for marathon… Fortunately it was untrue.

2. Mohsen said he was an ass the other day and I comforted him like, “No, you are not an ass, man. You are a dick…”

3. I few days later I kidded Mohsen by saying he was a dick and he smiled back. I was like, “Don’t worry. You are a good dick…”

4. I was under weather other day and Mohsen asked me how I was doing. I asked him, “Do you really care?” He was like, “No, I don’t…”

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The ivy on the trunk turned red while the leaves hadn’t.

1. I came into ECE Department Office asking Michelle for some help. Because she was occupied by something, she told me, “Just one second, please” So I kidded her like, “All right. One second, two second, three second…”

2. The moment I met Jin-Oh at a conference by the end of August, I ended a conversation with him by giving him a suggestion like, “Please feel free to cite my paper…”

3. I did Keerthana a favor at Retia a while ago and she said “Thank you.” I kidded her like, “You are not welcome…”

4. I took an interview at Apple two weeks ago and had lunch with a PSU graduate. Without question, we discussed about football including why Stanford had a solid football team but was not popular at Bay area but college football was frenzy in midwest. I made a comment like, “I think college football is only popular where people have nothing else to do…”

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Color of fall

1. I called Retia Medical LLC every so often to ask Keerthana questions about data. I called Retia again the other day to talk to Nima, but nobody answered the phone. Keerthana thought I need to talk to her and therefore called me back. I kidded her like, “Thanks for calling me back. But no offense… I didn’t wanna talk to you…”

2.1 Annand went to Boston a few weeks ago to tour Boston with one of his female friends. We joked with him saying he was on a date. I asked him how many days he would be in Boston and he told me three days. I kidded him like, “Dude, that’s a lot of fuck…”

2.2 Just before he left for airport, I gave my best wishes to him like, “Have a good weekend, dude. Go and get fucked…”

3. I called Retia and regarded Harsha’s voice as Nima’s. By the end of the talk on the phone, I gave my suggestion to Harsha like, “Word of suggestion, man. Don’t sound like Nima. It’s no good…”

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1. The Apple group I interviewed with didn’t think I was a good fit, which was kinda also what I thought. That’s OK. I might not accept the offer even if they gave it to me. But still fun to visit Jobs’ company for sure.

2. Fall of Michigan

1. Teddy invited me to his house party on Facebook and the page of the party marketed itself like, “Come to the best party in town. Getting laid guaranteed…”

2. I took an onsite interview of Apple at the bay area and I had to take three flights back to Lansing. On the last flight, a lady told me she recognized me from the last flight. I was like, “Oh, maybe it’s because I used the restroom a lot on that plane…”

3.1 Retia had a candidate for a job interview who appeared inefficient in communication skills four months ago. I joked with people like, “Maybe that guy’s good at sign language…”

3.2 Rama didn’t think that was a big deal like, “That could be OK. There were many good technical guys who are not good at communicating.” I joked by asking him like, “Oh, is it why you hired Nima and Keerthana?”

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Took an onsite interview at Apple Cupertino. Because of jet lag and the fact that I go to bed at 10pm in Michigan, I got up at 3am the interview day. By the end of the interview at 4ish pm, I basically couldn’t control what I was saying. Super exhausted. And I basically had no time to see friends. My apologies…

1. I was asking Keerthana questions about data the other day. After answering my question, she was being polite like, “Let me know if you have any other questions.” I kidded her like, “Don’t worry about that. I definitely will…”

2. I was watching a TV show talking about the economy recession in 2008 and the host made a comment like, “At that moment, you couldn’t find a sober economist claiming the economy was still healthy…”

3. Annand was complaining a girl to us by saying that girl was a pain in his ass. I kidded him like, “Dude, how many pains do you have in your ass?…” And Jiankun was also like, “And how painful was that?…”

4. I was reading a book about cardiac surgeons and one of the surgeons didn’t wanna get married because he believed, “Marriage is just too time consuming…”

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At Belle Isle Park of Detroit

1. I was watching a TED talk titled “Those you don’t know about sex.” One of topics covered is the recipe of making fake seamen… And the recipe says, “Here are the ingredients needed to yield one ejectulate of seamen: one teaspoon of honey, half one teaspoon of milk and XXX…”

2. I paid a visit to the hospital for some reason and told the receptionist my birthday is May the Fourth based on her request. And the receptionist was like, “May the force with you…”  —“May the force with you” is a symbolic line of Star Wars series which was a greeting from a Jedi warrior…

3. I was watching an interview of an entrepreneur, when the host complimented the entrepreneur for being humble. And the entrepreneur made fun of himself like, “Well, I have a lot to be humble about…”

4. Jiankun and Mohsen were talking about sharing gas for some trip the other day. Since Jiankun was somehow over weighted, I kidded him like, “I think you guys should share the gas by the weight…”

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Got a jersey of my idol, which probably reveals my age… 😦

1. Rama and I were having a meeting, when he felt hungry, took out an energy bar and asked me, “Do you mind if I eat it?” I kidded him like, “Do you mind if I mind?”

2. We were discussing about each other’s favorite city and I told people mine are Seatle and Boston. Someone commented like, “The weather in Seatle is depressing.” I was like, “I am depressed anyway. Why not stay depressed in Seatle?…”

3. Mohsen has been broke for a while because of a number of finance reasons, but still he was thinking about buying something. So I asked him, “Are you trying to be broker?” (Broker is both a noun and an adjective.)

4. We were discussing about population problems in the world and I made a comment to kid Annard like, “India is the most reproductive country in the world…”

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Micheal Jordan’s Steak House at Chicago..

Here are more about the conference at Chicago one week ago.

1. We came into the hotel room. Just before Mohsen turned on the light, I made my request like, “Let there be light!!” and the light was turned on by Mohsen… (God also said “Let there be light” when creating light and universe…)

2. We were having lunch together and cheered to drink the water. Mohsen was like, “Federico told me people should look at each other’s eyes when cheering. Otherwise they will have bad sex in the next 7 months.” I was like, “That’s OK for me. Bad sex is still better than no sex…”

3.1 I was at a session and the speaker spent too much time presenting her work even though the chair had reminded her several times. Just when everybody thought she should finish her talk, she presented another slide tilted “Future work”. The chair had to stop her by joking like, “All right. Let’s keep the future work for the future…”

3.2 The chair for that session was quite diligent about keeping speakers on time and kept reminding speakers with the time with the notes.” By the end of the session, he closed the session by joking like, “Thank you everybody for coming to the session. I enjoyed the presentations so much that, sometimes I even forgot to hand out the time notice…”

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Master work by Lizzy at Phoenix..

We were in Chicago in the past week for a conference.

1. Guanqun graduated from the lab around 2 years ago and also came to the same conference, when we did catch-ups in the hotel. Since he just got married weeks ago, when he told us he had to go to hospital for some reason on the second day of the conference, I had to interrupt him and make a comment to others like, “Dude, after a few weeks of marriage, Guanqun had to go to hospital to sell his kidney…”

2. Jinyao was also in the conference and walked around different sessions. Because many of the presentations were out of her field, she couldn’t understand them. So she complained to us like, “Why do I feel I am so dumb in this conference?” I kidded her like, “Maybe because you are dumb?”

3. Since we were on a business travel for this conference, the dinner can be reimbursed. We went to a Japanese BBQ restaurant for dinner one day and the food was so good that I made a comment to others like, “This restaurant is good. I think Rama’s research funding is well spent here…”

4. Rama chaired one session at the last schedule slot of the conference. By the end of the session, he was like, “All right everybody. Thank you for coming to this session. Let’s call it a conference…”

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Finally I dropped by to take a peek of the Bean at Chicago after staying in mid-west for seven years…

1. We were chilling in Zack’s room discussing about hitting on girls, when Zack was like, “The difference between being creepy and being man depends on how hot you are…”

2. JR Smith is a solid NBA player and known for liking girls of huge butt. A few days ago, he was seen and taken photos of when walking into a bar with 5 girls of huge butt. Someone on the internet saw the photo and made a comment like, “OMG, JR is dating 1000lb of butt…”

3. There is a new student named Anand joining our lab. I gave him an orientation about some basic rules for him in our lab. Because neither Jiankun nor I has a girlfriend and all current lab mates are trying to graduate in near future, I kidded Anand like, “Rule No.1 for you in the lab: don’t find a girlfriend before us; Rule No.2: don’t graduate before us…”

4. We were drinking beer in a restaurant and Niu Dimin claimed he never drinks beer before. Since we all knew that was a lie, Fang Dongliang was like, “Yeah, you didn’t drink beer. You drank urine…”

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Champion of Michigan Tournament. The son of bitch on my right not only tiptoed to look taller but also pressed me down to make me look shorter…

I used to wonder about the rationals of going back to school for PhD, before it came to me that living in Phoenix itself made my efforts pursuing PhD worthwhile. I met so many fun people and had so many hilarious moments that I would never forget. If I can choose to spend the past 4 years one more time, I would do it exactly the same again with you guys. I hope you guys know it’s definitely been a wonderful journey for me living in Phoenix and I hope every single one of you enjoyed sharing the journey with me. And yes, Barton’s moving out of Phoenix in a few days! Let’s keep in touch and don’t forget all the lovely smiles please. –Tons of Love, Barton

1. Ethnic America -Thomas Sowell 95%

This is a book written in 1980 describing how different ethnics including Irish, Italian, German, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Blacks and South Americans immigrated and developed in America. I love this book for two reasons: a. it did not only explain what happened but also offer deep analysis on how their social, educational and economic values and status quo shaped different ethnics’ development. So much can be learned. b. The wording and description are highly vivid and I can easily picture the information and situation the book was trying to deliver.

Since this book was written almost 35 years ago, while reading, I was trying to figure out what would best summarize the development of all ethnics in American in the past 35 years. Maybe the technology would play a key role in different ethnics’ immigration pattern? Meanwhile I visited the author’s website and became his fan. He is an outstanding and productive writer. I borrowed a bunch of his other books. Hopefully I have time to read them all.

2. David and Gliach -Malcolm Gladwell 85%

The author of this book was the one of Outlier and Blink. This book was written of the same style of the authors’ other books. It was trying to deliver a message that to be a big fish in a small pond can be a better idea and underdogs can beat the favorites in some situations with many inspiring opinions and stories, even though some points made remained vulnerable for arguments from my point of view. It’s a book worthwhile reading anyway.

3. 100 new health discoveries -Time Magazine ??%

I have been super interested in health related topics, not only because I have been paying tons of attention about my health, diet, physical exercise and psychology, but also because I am doing research in biomedical and trying to make a dent in health industry. An interesting book to get a big picture of current status quo about human health research, but not sure about the accuracy of the information delivered by a magazine special issue but not research papers. Anyway, it’s fun to read.

4. Pitching Hacks -Venture Hacks 70%

It’s a book talking about how entrepreneurs should pitch for investment from investors. There is some probably trivially useful information, but the skill of pitching itself means nothing for a successful business in my opinion. The key is to have a good idea and powerful execution. The funding will take care of itself afterwards.

5. King of Hearts -G. Wayne Miller 85%

I read this book because I am doing research in cardiovascular signal processing and hope to get some background in clinics. This book is somehow a biography of Dr. C. Walton Lillehe, a legendary surgeon and pioneer in cardiac surgery, complemented by some development history of cardiac surgeries. I learned a lot about the history, terminology and cardiac pathology.

1. Dan is moving into Phoenix in a month. I asked if he’s ready to move in. He told me he was ready mentally, but not physically yet. So I asked, “What about sexually?”

2. Nima asked me to show him how to do some stuff on computer and asked me if I would like to sit down all of a sudden. I kidded him like, “Yeah. By the way, thanks for asking 20 mins after I have been standing there…”

3. Guanqun emailed to inform us he just got married last Friday. I replied to all like, “Good! Now there is one less competitor in the market. Good for you and for us. Congratulations!”

4. Someone brought a kind of cologne as a bug spray, the translation of whose Chinese name was literally “Six God”. But Qiliang’s accent is so bad that, he pronounced it as “Sex God”… Since then, we all have been calling him Sex God…

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We went to see the open training session of Real Madrid and Manchester United yesterday. I saw many super stars, like Bale, C-Ronaldo, Ramos, Rooney and Giggs. To be honest, I am not a big fan of these two teams, but still was super exited to see so many stars.

Real Madrid

Manchester United

1. Cool Jordan, Hillary and I were cooking lunch and chilling in the kitchen earlier today.

1.1 Because I was in a T-shirt with a cartoon character of big teeth printed on, Hillary asked me, “What do you do with those teeth, Barton? Did you use them to break the ice?” I was like, “Not really. I do the icebreaking with my charisma, not teeth…”

1.2 We were discussing about if Chinese were eating cows’ penis, while cool Jordan kidded Hillary referring to her and her boyfriend like, “Anyway, we should ask Hillary about it. She eats penis every day…” I corrected him like, “No, Hillary doesn’t eat penis. She only tastes it…”

1.3 Hillary asked me what I would do after graduation and I joked with her like, “I hope to go to east coast where the girls outnumber guys, so that I can shop around before settling down…”

2. I was back to the company for a few of hours to show Nima how to use my codes two days ago and Rama told Nima to ask me anything he want to tweek for the good results like, “Mingwu is a tweek master.” I was like, “Yeah, I am a tweeker..”

(Keerthana didn’t even laugh at this joke. I was pretty mad.)

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I found this note in the house kitchen several months ago, saying “Things to do: Don’t eat…”

1. Xiaopeng’s wife is living in Chicago while he is doing Phd at East Lansing and claims Chicago is his home. Jiankun was like, “See this is the man. Home is where the woman is.” I was like, “Well, obviously we are homeless…”

2. Zoey knocked at Margo’s door when Margo was not home almost one year ago. I told her, “Margo’s not home.” She kidded me like, “I didn’t ask you, Barton.” “Well, I didn’t talk to you, Zoey.” I kidded her back.

3. I was watching an online interview of a scholar talking about his Phd adviser who is demanding in a hilarious way.

3.1 His adviser believed one of the scholar’s papers was so bad and he didn’t even wanna talk about it. So the scholar worked really hard for three days improving it. The adviser read the improved paper and became satisfied like, “Good. Now the paper is worth criticizing…”

3.2 The adviser made a comment on the scholar’s adviser for his undergraduate study like, “You worked with that guy before?! That guy’s idea is so bad that it’s not even wrong… (meaning the idea is un-testable.)”

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Jiankun has been craving for BBQ for the past week and it reminded me of the hardcore BBQ I came across four years ago. Obviously they did it right..

1. We were discussing about how a couple gave births to 7 babies for only a few years of marriage. Jiankun was like, “Oh, they are really productive.” I corrected him like, “No, actually they are really reproductive…”

2 Phoenix house had a fire last year, (click here for details) which was pretty bad but controlled by firefighters.

2.1 A few days after the fire, someone set the fire alarm accidentally during cooking and we had to call 911 one more time. When the firefighters came, one of them was like, “I can’t believe I am here again…”

2.2 Due to the damage of the fire, the house couldn’t throw a party as planned, while some other house threw a party using the theme we had figured out. We were pretty mad and cursed them as a thief. I was like, “I know we are cool and they can imitate us. But if they really wanna do that, they should catch a fire of their house by themselves…”

2.3 Things went back to normal after weeks. When people asked me how the house had been doing, I was like, “Everything gets back to normal, man. We’ve got the party. We’ve got the fire alarm set. We’ve got everything back…”

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The night of a pond

1. Lizzy was in Florida for weeks, during which Hillary used something in Lizzy’s cabinet in the kitchen when I was cooking and chatting with her. I knew Lizzy wouldn’t mind, but I still told her about it when she got back a few days ago for joking. So Lizzy talked to Hillary and Hillary blamed me like, “What are you doing, Barton? Are you trying to get me into trouble?” I was like, “No, the point is not to get you into trouble. The point is to get you girls fight against each other…”

2. Nima told me there was a restaurant in Atlanta, on the menu of which there were “Heart Attack Burger” and “Coronary Bypass Sandwich”… What was more, they held a food contest and Nima went and competed, ending up with third place…

3. Jiankun said he had a pretty South Korea girl neighbor and he really would like to know her. I thought he was thinking about asking her out for a date or something, but he was like, “I really wanna know her so that I can learn how to make kimchi…”

4. Whenever I got some bad results in research, I used to say I got crappy or shitty results. But since people can call good results unbelievable results, I figured out a better way to name bad results: “believable results”.

So if I get some bad results, a. I can proudly tell people that, “Dude, I get some believable results!”; b. or when people asked me whether I get some good results, I can proudly told him, “No, man. The result is totally believable…”

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UM law school library.

1. I am doing the job of house president this semester. Syd had a friend visiting the house the other day and introduced me to him as the president of the house. Her friend was like, “Good. Who’s Monica?… (referring to Lewinsky)”

We didn’t get the joke until he explained to us, after which I was like, “I am still looking for her, man..”

2. Marc told me he believed people should always try to do face-to-face business meeting even if sometimes it may seem useless at the first sight like, “Just beat the bushes, no matter what.” I was like, “That’s right. Don’t beat Clinton…”

3.1 John, Spencer and I went to a bar to see a stand-up comedian show, when one of the comedians claimed the floor of the bar was so sticky that it reminded her of her mum’s uterus…

3.2 Another comedian told people he worked in CVS and had often had to walk into customers’ farts…

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1. I forgot to mark the NBA champion of Spurs a couple weeks ago. Big fan. They missed the chance last year and I was super upset and sentimental for them (Click here for details). But they came back and complete the revenge. What a man!

2. Happiness that belongs to others

1. It was pretty hot the other day, but for some reason I was still in sweat pants and sweat shirt. Hillary asked me, “Aren’t you hot, Barton?” I was like, “Yes, I am (…long pause) and in both ways.”

2. Spencer had a friend visiting the house and he introduced me to him like, “This is Barton. He is the man.” I was like, “No, actually, I am the only man.”

3. Hot Jordan asked if I can do something for him the other day like, “Barton, if you can do that for me, I would quit smoking for you.” I kidded him like, “WOW, that’s great, Jordan. But I really don’t care…”

4. We were having a house meeting the other day and Hot Jordan and I were sitting on a couch. I made a comment to him like, “Oh man, this is the best spot in the living room.” Jordan agreed with me like, “Yeah, this is the best couch of the house.” So I kidded him like, “Dude, I meant my seat on the couch…”

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I found this therapy putty in a local clinical supply store showing the properties of both solid and liquid. It’s fun to play with them.

All of the following books are quite inspiring and worthwhile reading. I enjoyed them all.

1. Noise and Signals -Nate Silver 90%

Nate Silver is well known for predicting events in sports and politics. In this book he interpreted predicting as the process of separating signals from noise. I love this topic, because I heavily value the prediction for making my own decisions. I listened to a number of successful entrepreneurs’ speech around 20 years ago visioning the economic and technological situation now (or 20 years later counting from the moment of speech). I was totally amazed by how accurate they were predicting the future, which probably helped them make business decisions and led to their success. I would say this is a good book helping people look at prediction in a correct way even though it offers almost no solution to any of the prediction problem mentioned in the book.

2. My Life in Advertising -Claude Hopkins 90%

Claude Hopkins is a legend in the history of advertising industry. This is an autobiography of his legendary career. He was born in a poor and religion oriented family in late 1800s and contributed tremendously in the advertising of a wide variety of industries. This book exemplifies how to use people’s psychological and mental behavior to advertise and sell stuff. Really inspiring.

3. The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg 100%

This book is a must-read. It introduces the form, development and impact of people’s habit with regards to neuroscience, psychology and sociology. The habits of three different entities were discussed: individual, organization and society. What impressed me most is the key habit the book discussed about. Once people developed a key habit, many other habits will come along automatically (such as the key habit of exercise with regard to other habits such as  in diet, smoking and work).

4. Founder’s Dilema -Noam Wasserman 90%

This is a report of a thorough research of nearly 10 years on startup companies in USA. It exhibits potential decisions of startup founders have to make using real life examples and data from the very beginning of founding a startup. The only issue is it only exhibits the potential problems, but offers few or too vague suggested solutions. But still, it’s a quite amazing book with invaluable information.

5. Eleven Rings -Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty 95%

Phil Jackson is a legendary NBA basketball coach with 11 champion rings. Michael Jordan and Kobe Brant were his apprentices. This book is his autobiography discussing about his coaching philosophy through his whole basketball career experience. He integrated the concept of Zen and meditation into his coaching in addition to his legendary triangle offense. What impressed me most is his worship for Zen and meditation: relax and focus on the very current situation.

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For more about the books I have been reading, please hit:

2014.04.12 The books I have been reading

2013.12.29 The books I have been reading

2013.09.29 The books I have been reading

2013.07.04 The books I have been reading

2012.05.31 The books I have been reading

2011.04.15 The books I have been reading

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My first time to see Persian Cats in Mohsen’s apartment. Their furs are so soft and long. Their personalities are so elegant and meanwhile cute. Love them.

1. Apple announced to buy Beats for $3 billion last week and I read about Beats on wiki. Dr. Dre tried to persuade another co-founder to start the company with him like, “Man, it’s one thing that people steal my music. It’s another thing to destroy the feeling of what I’ve worked on.”

2. We went out to have buffet. After two plates of food, Nima claimed he only reached “regular full” and needed an amount of more to reach “buffet full”…

3. Spencer, John and I were on our way to a bar to see a standup comedian show, when Spencer asked me if I knew any jobs available since he was looking for a job. I was like, “John has some blow jobs if you need…”

4. I was at a potluck party and discussed about the fact that some Chinese people have one Chinese name and one English name. I made comments to American friends like, “Yeah, the point for us to have two names is to confuse you guys…”

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I found this piece of info from the fortune cookie the other day.That’s great if that’s true. But to be honest as long as my affair is covered, I don’t really care about my personal affairs..

1. Scott had a friend in the house the other day, who looked like him in some way. So I asked Scott if he was Scott’s brother and Scott said no. But I still reminded Scott like, “Are you sure man? You should do a DNA test. If he is your brother, you can’t marry him…”

2. Matt had sex with a girl the other night and people were congratulating him the next morning in the kitchen. I kidded him like, “The real good news is no one has called 911 yet…”

3. There is a Chinese job candidate coming for an onsite interview on June 15 and Rama asked me to join last Friday. I was like, “Good, first of all I can check if he’s Chinese.” Keerthana was like, “Why does anyone wanna pretend to be Chinese?” I was like, “Because Chinese is way cooler than Indian…”

And we talked about it and agreed that it would be fun if that guy turns out to be an Indian…

4. I watched a speech and the speaker made a comment on his paper like, “Of all the papers I have published in my career, this paper is without doubt the most recent…”

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My junior high buddy He Jia was in Michigan and I had dinner with him last Fri. It’s been 17 years. We were good buddies and I used to give a ride to him to school for 2 years before he figured out how to ride a bike. So good to see him.

1. I was watching an Ellen’s show interviewing David Beckham, who is good looking and probably dreamed by every girl. To open the conversation with David, Ellen pretended to flirt with David like, “First of all, I would like to say, David please feel free to take off your clothes during the coming interview. Don’t worry. You can interrupt me any time if you like…”

2. John has some scar on his head due to some surgery when he was still a baby to keep his brain grow healthily. After he explained this to people, I kidded him like, “That’s cool John. But obviously some damage has been done though…”

3. I was at a conference the other day, when the chair of one session introduced himself to give next speech by saying, “Next, please welcome me to give a speech on the topic of XXX…”

4. I dropped by Charli’s room to say hi and found people hanging out there including new house mate Nick. After he told me which room he was staying in, I joked with him like, “That’s a nice room man, even though not as nice as mine…”

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Found this cutie/fattie the other day in a book store…

1. I got up early morning to make breakfast while almost all housemates were sleeping. James came out of his room talking on the phone. So I kidded him like, “Dude, do you have to be so loud?…”

2. I was supposed to stay in Marc’s house for a conference this weekend. So I bought a can of Yankee’s scent candle as a gift and planned to say “It works best if put close to Marc’s shoes…” (But for some reason, I had to stay in a hotel… What a waste of my joke… )

3. I was officially recognized as the Most Eligible Bachelor of the house… Totally embarrassed… 😦

4. And here is the full list of the awards…

*~*PHX Haus 2014 Paper Plate Awards*~*

PFM – Most likely to live in the Playboy mansion

John – Most likely to be on “Cops” for public nudity

Jordan R. – Most likely to bail John out of jail.

James – World’s best boss

Tómas – Most likely to grow up to be a yuppie hipster

Jack – Most likely to grow up to be a carnie.

Andy – Most likely to be stooping.

Joe – Most likely to have white guy dreads in five years

Nick – Most likely to have your lighter

Matt – Drunk wrestling champion

Devin – Most responsible hippie

Barton – Most eligible bachelor

Carrigan – Crudest humor

Kara – Most likely to write illegal prescriptions

Syd – Most likely to be a victim of identity theft

Charli – Most likely to grow up to be a proud, loud black woman

Spencer – Most likely to be a self-sustainable drug lord

J-Brand – Most likely to walk on water

Celeste – Most likely to get a Nicholas Cage tattoo

Ayaka – Most likely to pass out drunk first

Sarah – Most likely to be seen not wearing pants

Jessica – Most likely to be reincarnated as an elephant

Lozzy – Most likely to be the next Disney princes casted as the “Whistling Wizard”

Ikuna – Most likely to apply for U.S. citizenship

Hilldog – Most likely to be in a rap video

Zack – Most likely to break into the SHC office and burn it down

Scott – Punk rock dad

1. Hao posted a picture a lot of groceries on internet and asked people to guess what meal he was gonna cook by asking “what would these become after all chemical reactions?” Someone answered, “shit…”

2. Cool Jordan gave me his birthday wish by saying, “Happy birthday old man!” on Facebook. I asked “Doesn’t ‘old man’ mean ‘dad’?” He replied like, “Isn’t there anything you didn’t tell us, Barton?” I told him, “Not really man. I just wanna get clear that I am not your dad…”

3. By the end of day Keerthana said she would leave early to pick up a mail. I pretended to comprehend ‘mail’ with ‘male’ by asking, “Do you have a date, Keerthana?”

4. Rama was wondering if Nima can handle too much work at once by asking, “I am not sure if you have the bandwidth to do them at the same time.” I was like, “Don’t worry. Nima is supported by AT&T…”

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30th Birthday gift to myself last Sunday, cake and a marathon of 4hr30min44sec (slower than the medium of all male participants…)

Oopsy… I Officially survived my 20s and turned 30! Thanks to everyone showing up in my life and making me who I am. I had great fun and enjoyed the wonderful 30 years. Can’t wait for another 10 years. Here is my evolution in the past 30 years.

1. I came across Charli in the house when she was walking into the bathroom, so I gave her my best wishes like,” Have a good pee, Charli…” She was like, “Thanks, Barton. I will..”

2. I walked into a store in the mall and found two sales girls chatting and laughing. One of them came to greet me while trying but unable to control laughing. I was like, “Something must be really funny here…” She kept laughing and told me, “I am sorry. It’s all her!” pointing to the other girl. I joked like, “Well, I can tell she looks funny…”

3. Celeste had a friend coming to have house dinner with us and sat next to me. I greeted her and asked whose friend she was, when she told me Celeste’s. I was like, “Huh, I didn’t know Celeste has friend…”

4. Marc asked me to make a slide explaining something to him for a company meeting, but I forgot and therefore apologized. He explained further like, “It’s not only for me. The whole company will learn from it.” I joked with him like, “Unstandable. I know you don’t wanna look selfish…”

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We went out to see Peter Pan starred by our house mate Andy. Oh man, obviously he has got the looks of a good actor…

1. We were having house dinner and hanging out in the kitchen, when for some reason Jessica laughed really loud. I was like, “Jessica, your laugh is so impressive.” Because of my accent, people thought I said, “Jessica, your love is so impressive…” which was basically only legit to happen after sex.

After we got things straight people laughed and I had to apologized like, “I am sorry, Jessica. I didn’t mean to talk dirty…” John was like, “That’s no talking dirty, man. That’s talking sweet…”

2. I wore red sweatpants and hoodie the other day and people asked me what was going on, when I joked with them like, “Oh, I am a communist and come here to share the glory…”

3. I gave a ride to Kara to somewhere earlier today, when she was having a peanut butter sandwich and dropped a piece of peanut butter on her pants. She was like, “Oh no, there is peanut butter on my pants!”, when wetting her hand with liquid from her mouth before having the stain removed. I was like, “Good, now there is saliva on your pants…”

4. I am working on the third episode of Good Wife, a TV show with the background of lawyers, and learned something about lawyers and stuff. Nevin came to our office the other day and told us he had to go to court for a law case he had to handle. After he explained the details of the case, I was like, “Well, based on my solid law background of two seasons and 8 episodes of Good Wife…. I think those who propose the statements are accountable to provide evidence.” Nevin was so impressed like, “Good, now you can be my lawyer with background of more than two seasons of Good Wife…”

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I visited a Lego store months ago and found this wall selling Lego parts. I think it’s pretty cool.

I’ve been pretty busy in past months. Nothing below is for serious reading. Mostly for fun and relaxation.

1. My Autobiography -Alex Ferguson 90%

Alex Ferguson is a legendary soccer manager of Manchester United from 1986-2013 and won 49 champion trophies. This is his autobiography. Huge fan. One of the reasons I like to follow all kinds of sports is because I think sport is a really good model of people’s practical life and career. It’s all about resource, competition, learning, building, collaboration, control and management. Something can always be learned from what’s going on in sports and use it to guide my life and career. This book impressed me in the followings aspects,

a. Ferguson’s insight about how people evaluate leaders: “aa. Can he make us winners? bb. Can he make me a better player? cc. Is he loyal to us?” b. the mantra Ferguson sticks to for building the team is pretty similar to Warren Buffet’s investment strategy: everything should be about long term goal and value; c. Many examples and insights about why some players can stay super stars, why some players became mediocre players from super star and why some players became super star from mediocre players –so much can be learned.

Highly recommend this book.

2. My Point and I do have one -Ellen Degeneres 50%

Everybody should have heard about Ellen as a legendary comedian. I like her show. But I have to say this book is not for me. The book is narrating story in the way Ellen was hosting her show. I can tell it would be funny if Ellen presents the material in her show, but not in the book. Kinda boring and didn’t reveal why she turned successful after going through really tough times in her earlier career.

3. The Photographers’ Guide to Photoshop -MAGBook 95%

Before this book I have been thinking about upgrading to a full frame DSLR; after this book I realized that’s totally unnecessary based on my needs. This book teaches many techniques through examples in a simple way. I learned a lot about improving the artistic quality of photos.

4. 50 Photo Projects -MAGBook 85%

This book teaches people to carry on 50 interesting photo shooting projects by case study. Fun book to read for learning to take nice photos step by step.

5. Men’s Health Training Guide 2014 -Men’s Health Magazine ??%

To be honest, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out the best eating and working out routine. But the more I read, the more confused I am about what to do, because there are so many different opinions on the same topic. It is probably just one of those another books…

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For more about the books I have been reading, please hit:

2013.12.29 The books I have been reading

2013.09.29 The books I have been reading

2013.07.04 The books I have been reading

2012.05.31 The books I have been reading

2011.04.15 The books I have been reading

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I took the pleasure of having my lovely ex-housemates Mara, Courtney, Jane and Alex drop by my room and hang out when I was dog siting Jake last night. Great time guys. Your names are mentioned in my blog as promised.

1. We have been working hard for a deadline for weeks and there was something boring to be done. Rama made a comment in the office the other day like, “Yeah, that’s a pain in the ass. But don’t worry, Mingwu is gonna do it.” I was like, “Well, now it’s a pain in my ass…”

2. Most Chinese people wear more than one layer of pants in China for winter, which is totally untrue for Americans. Hao still does the same and wears one extra pair of pants for warm in USA. One day he came out of swimming pool and got dressed in the locker room, when a senior American was impressed by the extra layer of pants and made a comment to him like, “Young man, you are over protecting your balls…”

3. I am getting 30 but all my housemates are at their early 20s. I dropped by Charli’s room to say hi and found she had some friends in her room. She introduced me to them like, “Everybody, this is Barton. He is old.” People asked how old I am and Charli was like, “You know Jeremy  (I am not sure about the name…) is 25 which is pretty old, but Barton is older.” I was like, “Yeah, I am older than pretty old…”

4. Rama complained to us that one of the professors didn’t respond his email. Jim told him that that professor just failed the tenure, and Rama admitted that now he understood the situation. I was like, “See, people have to fail the tenure to get forgiveness from Rama…”

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I am a master of cooking fired eggs and can make both sides super tender as follows for my everyday breakfast, served with red hot, just saying.

1. We were hanging out in the kitchen with Hillary using the tap water. For some reason there was a huge vibration and some noise coming out of the pipe. I joked with her in an exaggerated way referring to the working mode of dildos like, “Oh~, vibration~, that is dirty…”

2. We were discussing how some teachers in high school were often teaching something wrong and we all liked to correct them. Keerthana was like, “The point was not to embarrass those teachers. The point was to keep them from teaching wrong things to others.” I was like, “Actually for me, the point was not to keep them from teaching wrong things to others. The point was to make me feel good about myself…”

3. I worked on noisy data for months and just started working on something else but haven’t got good result yet. So I made comments to others like, “I find I am working on either crappy data or crappy results…”

4. Rama asked me if I can get something done like, “Can you get it done before 4pm without any bugs?” I was like, “I can promise about the finish part, but can’t say anything about the ‘no bug’ part…”

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I should have brought this cutie home from a book store weeks ago but didn’t. I went back yesterday but found it sold. Sad… I don’t mind failing opportunities but hate missing opportunities. 😦

1. Kara asked if I would like to have ice cream with her and Devin the other day after the soccer game. I was like, “Not really,,, Ice cream makes people fat…” Kara was like, “You don’t wanna become fat together with us, Barton?” I was like, “No, it sounds too romantic to me…”

2. I got home and found people chilling in the kitchen. Since I haven’t seen Lizzy for a while, I hugged her to say hi and asked how she has been doing. She told me, “I am doing good. Just took a shower so that I won’t smell.” I was like, “Yeah… That’s why I hugged you…”

3. We were having a meeting with Marc on Skype the other day. The moment I saw him, I was like, “Marc, how come you look even better in the camera…”

4. I had lunch at Chipotle a lot and almost everybody working there knows me. One of the girls gave me a Burrito for free months ago, but I haven’t seen her for a while because of her schedule issue. I saw her again the other day and asked her like, “What’s going on? I haven’t seen you for ages. I thought they fired you…”

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An abandoned house at downtown Detroit doesn’t abandon itself by saying “It’s OK…”

1. Hot Jordan went home for spring break and got back a few days ago. I asked him about what he did for the break. He was like, “Oh I helped my girlfriend move.” I kidded him like, “Why did she move? Was she leaving you?” Jordan was like, “No, she wasn’t leaving me. She was just moving.” I was like, “Come on man. Wake up. She was not moving. She was moving on…”

2. I got off work for home and saw Nevin and Keerthana chatting the other day. So I went up and joked with them like, “What secret are you guys talking about?” Nevin was like, “Oh, you know, Keerthana is a nice person.” I was like, “No, it’s not a secret. It’s a lie…”

3. We had to work in the office today (Sunday) for a deadline and had a meeting, when Varun was trying to draw something using marker on the white board. Since the marker was not working, Rama joked like, “Maybe because the marker is too tired…” I was like, “No, maybe because it’s Sunday today…”

4. We took two snow days off for the first two days of this semester because of unbelievably huge snow. Since there were no classes for two days, I made comments to my housemates like, “Folks, I think it’s a really good way to start a semester…”

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Detroit Abandoned Train Station… New lens is so fun!

1. I was cooking house dinner in the kitchen with Celeste the other day, when Matt came down to check about the dinner’s ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival).  “It will be ready in 20 mins,” I advised him like Steve Jobs like, “So stay hungry, stay foolish…” (It is the favorite motto of Steve Jobs. For more please search “steve jobs stanford commencement speech” on Youtube.)

2. I was in a local store a few months ago and the owner John put my info into the computer for future follow-up. For some reason I dropped by the store again and this time a girl named Joana had to do the same thing one more time. It took her a long time to get it done, so she apologized to me. I comforted her like, “Don’t worry, it took john longer…”

3. I took my car to the ford dealer, who gave me a ride back to the company. Meanwhile I talked to the girl sitting next to me and she told me she is studying political science at MSU. I asked if she is planning to become a politician and she said no. So I kidded her like, “Good for you, (long pause) for not being a lier…” She laughed and said people from her department actually don’t lie. I was like, “Well, that’s a lie right there…”

4. I was working on some really crappy data the other day and claimed to Rama that I should have got a medal for not killing myself. Since Keerthana and I joked a lot, this time she kidded me like, “Actually you should get a medal if you have killed yourself…

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At least I still have you…. —-I took Jerry to Port Austin with friends and my friend Yan Li took an amazing shot of us with my photoshop credit…

1. Rama invited a doctor from ICU of UM hospital and people to his house to celebrate the end of a study the other day. The doctor brought his 4-year-old son Martin, who was playing with Rama’s 4-year-old son Vishwa. Martin started the conversation with the job his dad does like, “My dad saves people who crush.” Vishwa was like, “My dad sits at desk and drinks coffee…”

2. There was a New Year party at the incubator inviting people from different companies. Whenever someone came and talked to us, I introduced Keerthana to them like, “This is Keerthana. She sucks…”

3. I dropped by Scott’s room to say hi and asked him how he has been doing. He said, “I am doing good. Thanks man.” I kidded him by indicating his ugliness like, “Are you sure? You are not looking good dude…”

4. Rama tried to encourage us to work as hard as possible to get one project done by a drawing as follows in black.

The black dots indicate a constant discomfort employee handles, while Rama believed we should have experienced the one marked by black solid line, meaning if we worked hard enough to get this thing done, we can relax later. We believed his theory was incorrect and I pointed out the reality using blue marker… (Hopefully someone who took the course of Signal and System can get it…)

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I had played in two indoor soccer teams which had done super well so far with 6 wins but 0 loss. I scored a goal using left foot in the last game. Probably my first goal using left foot in my career. So excited. I couldn’t even sleep that night.

1. Kara and I were cooking house dinner in the kitchen, when her strapless bra fell down somehow and she had to lift it up. I kidded her like, “what is going on?!” She was a little bit self-conscious about her boobs’ size like, “I will never find a boyfriend…” I comforted her like, “Don’t worry, your boobs are still growing…”

2. I am a big fan of Russell Peters and therefore quite interested learning to speak English in an Indian accent from time to time. While Keerthana is from India, I learned a lot from her and can do some Indian accent pretty good. One day she said “Oh My God” with no accent, so I had to correct her like, “Keerthana, you didn’t say it right. You should say ‘Oh My God’ (with strong Indian accent), not ‘Oh My God’ (with no indian accent)…”

3. Nima is from Iran and my colleague at Retia Medical while Mohsen is from Iran and my office mate at MSU. One day Rama introduced Nima to Mohsen so that Mohsen can help Nima better accommodated in East Lansing. I had to warn Nima like, “Hey, you be careful of Mohsen, he is Iranian…”

4. Celeste and I were cooking house dinner with Scott chilling in the kitchen. Cool Jordan walked in and asked, “why does it smell so bad here?” I kidded Scott like, “I have no idea why it smells like Scott…”

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Probably not the best weather to run 10.5 miles out there…

1. I dropped by Spencer’s room to say hi and found John and Paul also there, with Paul lying in Spencer’s bed in a really slutty posture browsing internet. I was like, “Look at Paul, the whole package, looking so good…” People laughed and I followed up to comfort Paul like, “My bad man. I meant the whole wreckage, not the package…”

2. Celeste and I were cooking house dinner the other day with Charli chilling in the kitchen. Just when Charli was drinking water from her bottle, I pretended to be “the most interesting man in the world” and reminded her seriously like, “Stay thirsty, my friend.” And Charli couldn’t help laughing and threw up the water in her mouth… (Find “the most interesting man” or “Stay thirsty my friend” on Youtube please.)

3. Scott has been failing to find his stuff the other day and complained to me like, “I have been losing stuff, man.” I kidded him like, “Losing what stuff? I hope you lose some weight man…”

4. I got refunded from the company for traveling and went to the bank to deposit the check. The girl helping me fill the form took a look of the check and asked, “Is it $68.30?” I was like, “Yeah… Trust me, I wish it could be more…”

5. Because of some bank account issues, we don’t have house food for a week. When Carrigan tried to confirm the news with me, I was like, “Yeah man, we are so fucked…”

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1. The saddest thing that can happen to a phd student just happened to me last week. The citations of my paper on waste water mentioned in last blog were just reduced by 1… Damn,,, citations reduced by 1. How can this be possible… 😦

2. Campus taken by phone. 🙂

1 I am really fast implementing and testing algorithms and ideas in research. Rama made a comment to me a few days ago like, “Mingwu, you are the fastest implementer in Midwest…”

2 I passed comprehensive exam last August with a little work left for PhD. But I had to put the PhD work aside and worked as a consulting intern in Rama(my professor)’s company from last September to the coming mid Jun. One day Rama suggested me in a discussion like, “Mingwu, you have to think like a PhD.” I kidded him like, “Give me the PhD, then I will think like a PhD…”

3. I dropped by Charli’s room to say hi and found Lizzy was also in her room. Lizzy asked me, “Barton, why don’t you talk to me?” I pretend to be in a relationship with her like, “Lizzy, I think we have spent too much time together.” She kidded back like, “No, I wanna talk to you over a cup of wine, Barton…”

Charli laughed and jumped in like, “It sounds romantic, but the relationship goes too fast Lizzy.” “Yeah, I am not ready for such a commitment,” I continued joking and pretended to scrutinize the relationship between Lizzy and me seriously like, “Lizzy, where are we?”

4. Scott and Sarah are good friends and also my housemates in Phoenix. They were having conversations while lying in Scott’s bed under separate blankets the other day. At one point Sarah disagreed with Scott and screamed “No!!!” really loud, when I happened to walk into the house and heard the scream. So I dropped by Scott’s room, pretended to assume Sarah was being sexually harassed by Scott and asked, “Sarah, did you just scream ‘No’? …”

I chilled a little bit in Scott’s room and gave them my best wishes before leaving for my room  like, ” I have to run folks. You guys have a good sex…”

5. It has been snowing extremely heavily in Michigan this winter. It snowed again the other day and I met the front desk lady on my way work. I asked her, “How do you like the snow?” She said, “To be honest, I am a little bit tired of it now.” I was like, “Oh, that’s OK if it’s only ‘a little bit’…”

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1. I found one of my papers on waste water got two more citations with three in total the other day… And yes, it’s a paper on waste water, seriously…

2. I watched a hockey game between MSU and OSU with housemates the other day. Hockey is so much more fun to watch than any other sports without any question. The game is going so fast and intense with almost no stops because of seldom out-of-bound. I have to admit hockey becomes my favorite sport to watch now…

1. Yujing found a new job and asked Hao and I to help him assemble Ikea furniture one year ago. After we finished a chair, Hao was trying to be encouraging for no reason like, “What a solid and durable chair! Yujing is ready to get a girlfriend for sure!” I corrected him like, “No, actually Yujing is ready to get a fat girlfriend for sure…”

2. It is fun to work with an ego like Rama especially for another ego like me. Rama and I are trying to solve a really challenging problem, while I came to an idea the other day and told it to him. He found me the next day and introduced me to his “new” finding for like 15 mins, which was basically the same as what I told him. In the end, he asked me, “So do you agree with me?” I replied like, “Well, I think it was my idea and I told you yesterday.” He didn’t even feel embarrassed like, “So you agree with me then…”

3. The house formed an indoor soccer team of “Bass2Mouth” for the third year this semester and we won a game of 12:2 the other day. Dan gave us a ride home, when Cool Jordan, Kara and Spencer volunteer to sit in the back and left the shotgun to me like, “All pretty people sit in the back and old people can take  the shot gun,”, simply because I am hitting 30 soon and way older than them. I was like, “Dude, you guys are so ageists…”

4. We were chilling in Scott’s room and Lizzy asked me, “Barton, am I one of your favorite house mates in the house?” I kidded her like, “No, you are one of my favorite pussies in the house…”

5. I was making breakfast with Sarah and Hillary chilling in the kitchen. Sarah claimed her gut hurt all of a sudden. I was like, “Yeah, Hillary just hit you on your gut mentally.” Hillary kidded like, “Barton, I just kicked you hard mentally.” I kidded her back like, “Oh, I hurt a lot mentally, Hillary…”

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Finally, the school got us an indoor soccer goal… 😦

1. The lighting bulb of the bathroom used by Devin was dead the other day. She posted something on house Facebook group like, “Can Jordan (house maintenance officer) fix our bathroom’s bulb please? It’s pretty scary to poop in the dark.” I kidded her by indicating she poops loud like, “In this case, I think you need a muffler, Devin!”

(Sadly almost nobody got my joke and I had to explain to people diligently afterwards, even though I personally believe it’s been my favorite joke so far this year… 😦 )

2. It’s been freezing cold in East Lansing while the heat of our office was down yesterday. We informed the lady at the front desk and she told us she was gonna check to see if other offices had the same issue first. I kidded her like, “I mean, you don’t have to keep other offices warm btw…”

3. By the end of the company meeting the other day, Rama summarized each one’s job like, “Keerthana is doing the job of XXX; Varun is doing the job of XXX; Nima is doing the job of XXX; Mingwu is doing the job of XXX. They are all tough problems to solve and I am helping them.” So I interrupted to kid him like, “And Rama is doing the job of claiming the credit…”

4. I like to take a nap at the cubicles of the incubator in the afternoon, but the incubator torn those cubicles down and turned them into a conference room. Nevin kidded me the other day like, “I am sorry you lost your napping spot, man.” I was like, “Yeah… Those people are so rude. They didn’t even ask.” Nevin continued our joking like, “Yeah, How dare they!”

5. I called Hao Wen to ask him a question. Since I haven’t talked to him for a while, the moment he answered the phone, he kidded me by pretend to flirt with me like, “It’s so great to hear your voice, Mingwu Buddy…” I kidded him back by flirting with him like, “It’s so great to have my voice heard by you, Hao Bro…” And he couldn’t help laughing and came to a conclusion like, “My bad man. I shouldn’t have tried to be sluttier than you…”

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I miss the season whichever is not winter so much…

 1. Rama invited people of the company to his house one month ago and showed them my first standup comedian show (Click here for the link) for entertainment after dinner. (In the show I was like, “I look awesome, but I don’t wanna be handsome. Because twosome is having sex with two people, threesome is having sex with three people, so handsome is having sex with hands…)

   A few days later, we had a company meeting before the New Year. When my turn came, Marc was like, “Mingwu, I wish you a handsome new year…” I get him back like, “Oh, thanks, you too…”

2. Rama and I were having a discussion in the meeting room of the incubator and didn’t notice Nevin from another company knocking the door. Nevin got in anyway and kidded me like, “I blame you not opening the door for me, man.” I was like, “Oh, I knew it was you. That was why I didn’t open the door…”

3.1 Keerthana and I went to ICU of cardiovascular department of University of Michigan to collect data and wrap up the study for the company. Jim is the doctor that helped us and said he couldn’t believe the project started almost 1.5 years ago and how time flew. Keerthana agreed with him like, “Yeah, that was my second day in the company.” I kidded her like, “You are too self-conscious Keerthana. Nobody cares about you…”

3.2 Sarah was the student that helps us collect data. When she came, she didn’t notice Jim working behind the cubicle next to her and sill told us she needed to find Jim. Since Jim could hear everything we said, I told Sarah like, “I am glad you didn’t say anything bad about him… But you can tell me about it later…”

4. (Sorry, the punch line of the following piece has to be delivered in Chinese… 😦 )

   我和几个朋友去逛Mall, 文浩要给他妈买个Coach的包包。我问他想要买什么样的，他说想买个稳重点儿的。我幽幽地告诉他，”里面放几个铅块不就行勒…”

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Devin invited Hot Jordan, John and me to do a 5K running with her last Sat. I completed the 5K for 21’57” (pace 7.05 min/mile, ranking 7/23 in male 25-29 age group and 21/331 overall). I am happy with the pace and my shape.

1. John was my housemate living in Phoenix last year and went to Brazil last June. He was supposed to stay there for a year, but he changed his mind and came back to stay in Phoenix last week. The moment I saw him, I was quite surprised but still kidded him like, “Dude, why did you come back, did you get evicted by Brazil? I know you are a rapist, but you don’t have to let them know…”

2. I saw Hot Jordan at the leasing office the other day and told him secretly, “Jordan, can I let you know you are my favorite asshole in the house?” He was like, “Thanks, Barton. I worked really hard on it.” I was like, “Yeah, I knew you went through a lot. You deserve it…”

3. Rama and I thought we could finish a project two months ago, which is seriously coming to an end recently. He made a comment to people in the office the other day like, “Mingwu and I are wrapping up this project.” I was like, “Huh, actually we started wrapping up two months ago…” After a thought, I figure out a better way to address it, “I think we are wrapping up the wrapping-up now…”

4. Rama was talking about why he started the company and he wanna have his research outcome accepted in clinical use, because he wanna fulfill his career goal. I asked him viciously like, “What does career goal mean? Is it another way to say ‘ego need’?”

5. I took a nap in the afternoon in the office the other day. When I got up, I still look sleepy. Nevin from another company saw me and made a comment like, “You look like you need a tea, man.” I was like, “No, I look like I need a raise…”

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Never believe car is of any identity of anybody, but still always wanna get a white SUV and got one weeks ago. Just wanna mark it.

1. Hanqing hasn’t come and played soccer for months. When he showed up a couple of weeks ago, he appeared to have gained a lot of weight. I asked him, “Dude, did you gain like 15 lbs?” He smiled and looked down at his belly. Just before he figured out an answer, I kidded him like, “Why did you look down? I meant 15lbs on your face…”

2. SB means dumb ass in Chinese. It is sometimes used by close guy friends to greet each other just to say hi. One day Shaochen updated his status on his Chinese version twitter and I replied “SB” just to say hi. Di knew I was joking but still pretended to be serious like, “Be polite and careful of the words you used.” I replied like, ” My bad. Let me rephrase it, ‘Shaochen, I could be wrong, but I think you probably are a SB…'”

3. Xiaopeng told us his sister drove her SUV over his foot accidentally in her garage. I knew he is OK, so I kidded him like, “OMG, everything’s OK with the SUV?”

4. Our house got a civil infraction ticket for not removing the snow on the walk way in front of the house a couple of weeks ago. It has been snowing for the past days, so I went out to remove the snow yesterday. A guy walked by and I said morning. He greeted me like, “Here is a solute from a walker” expressing his gratitude toward my efforts of removing snow. I was like, “Oh, you are welcome, but we’ve got a ticket, that’s why I am doing this…”

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My new year’s gift for myself. Love it.

All of the following books are light reading (a couple of hundreds of pages at most), but still fun.

1. The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America -Warren Buffet 85%

I became interested in Warren Buffet as mentioned before (click here for more). This book is a collection of Buffett theory about how he governs the Berkshire Hathaway. (Note: this is not a book about his investment strategy.) Full of pretty good insights about Buffett’s values and decisions toward building companies.

2. The Warren Buffett Stock Portfolio: Warren Buffett Stock Picks: Why and When He Is Investing in Them -Mary Buffet 85%

This book is read for the same reasons as mentioned above. This is a book covering the stocks Buffet has picked based on his theory and value. Pretty good case study books to understand Buffet’s theory and values.

3. Tony Northrup’s DSLR Book: How to Create Stunning Digital Photography -Tony Northrup  95%

Amazon’s #1 rated and best-selling digital photography book covering basically all techniques and theory of photography in a really easy way to understand. A beginner can grow to an expert at least in theory with the help of this book. Anybody who finishes the book only needs more practice to grow simply because of the comprehensive coverage of this book. People of all level would benefit from the book.

4. Cardiovascular Physiology Concepts -Richard E. Klabunde 90%

Really good introductory book for cardiovascular system

5. The Science of Keeping It Healthy. (Special Edition 2013) -Time Magazine  90%

A special issue from Time Magazine about daily health from diet, body weight, mood, meditation. I personally guess most of the materials are summarized from research outcome info available for public. (Because I recognized something coming from the free online course of “Positive Psychology” from Yale University).  Really useful information and suggestions  for daily well being on almost everything.  Anyone can learn from this special issue magazine for sure.

6. Mastering The VC Game -Jeffrey Bussgang  85%

This is a book that gives people common sense about how VC forms and functions written by an insider of the VC game. Pretty good information source for people who are unfamiliar with VC like me.

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For more about the books I have been reading, please hit:

2013.09.29 The books I have been reading

2013.07.04 The books I have been reading

2012.05.31 The books I have been reading

2011.04.15 The books I have been reading

1. After the house Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks ago, I asked Hot Jordan secretly, “Can I tell you something, Jordan?” He said yes and I kidded him like, “Jordan, I am really thankful you are an asshole…” “I am really thankful you are a smart ass, Barton…” He kidded me back.

2. Nema and I were discussing about cooking in the office and I told him that Keerthana claimed to be a cooking master, even though she denied to have said that. I was like, “You didn’t say the exact word, but I can read your mind.” She was like, “All right, tell me what I am thinking now.” I answered immediately like, “You are thinking I am a big jerk.” “Not exact word, but close.” She was impressed by my mind reading ability…

3. Rama bought us dinner and we discussed about the visa issue of Iranian students. Mohsen was like, “That’s why there are no Iranian students going back to Iran during Phd.” I corrected him like, “No, actually there are. Just none of them could come back…”

4. I met Hot Jordan in the kitchen where people were hanging out. He asked me if I would like to join them. I was like, “No, I have more important things to do.” He asked, “Like what?” I kidded him like, “Like, to stay away from you…”

1. Lizzy was painting the wall of the hallway the other day and I asked her when she was gonna finish. She told me the next day. However she didn’t finish it the next day and I asked her why, when she told me it took her longer than she thought. I was like, “Well, that’s OK, but I just wanna remind you that you are a liar…”

2. We’ve got a secret Santa party and I was supposed to give cool Jordan a gift without revealing my identity so that he can guess three times who gave the gift to him. I bought a Tshirt and a card for him. The cover of the card says, “A friend to have sex with.” Inside I wrote using my left hand like, “Keep your door unlocked tonight, seriously. -Lizzy” Of course Jordan didn’t guess it was me with 3 guesses and Lizzy was mad at me…

3.1 We were cooking and hanging out in the kitchen yesterday and came to the topic of diarrhea for some reason. Cool Jordan was like, “You know there are different kinds of diarrhea. There is explosive diarrhea, leaky diarrhea and things in between…”

3.2 We kept talking and decided we should have a poop contest in the house to see figure out who has: the longest poop, the thickest poop, the fastest poop, the slowest poop, the most painful poop, the prettiest poop, the ugliest poop and even the most solid poop…

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This was my last secret Santa party at Phoenix. Everything will be heavily missed!

1. I was watching the football game between Alabama and Auburn last weekend. One Auburn player’s jersey was ripped broken, while Auburn brought out a sewing machine on the field… The commentator was like, “This is my first time to see a sewing machine on a football game…”

2. OSU football coach is Urban Meyer, who worked as a commentator at ESPN before joining OSU. I was watching an OSU football game on ESPN the other day, while the commentator mentioned about him like, “Oh I worked with Meyer two years ago. He liked it so much that he decided to quit and become a coach…”

3. It was my first time to give myself a haircut using electric clipper last weekend. It was fun and I felt self-sufficient. Everything went well until the last trim on the side, when I screwed it up. People laughed at me and Charli asked why I would like to give myself a haircut. I was like, “I need to practice, just in case I am left on an island in the future with no people to give me a haircut…” After a thought I corrected myself like, “oh, actually just in case I am left on an island with electricity but no people to give me a haircut…”

4. Celeste posted something claiming smoking weeds can give guys big boobs on house Facebook group like, “Sorry to break it to you guys.” Even though I don’t smoke weeds, I still kidded her by replying like, “Cool. I like bigger boobs…”

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The football game I watched between Alabama and Auburn was definitely epic! Alabama led by a touchdown with 4 mins to go, while Auburn tied the game with 30 sec left in the game. Alabama ran the ball and pushed to Auburn’s 46 yard line with 1 sec left, and tried but failed that long field goal. Auburn caught and returned that field goal with 109 yard touchdown and won the game… So wild and epic…

We had the house Thanksgiving Dinner last Sunday. It was pretty fun and thanksgiving.

1.1 We were preparing the turkey in the kitchen and hanging out, when Scott made a fart. I was like, “That one didn’t pay the rent, man?”

1.2 People came downstairs and hung out with us when we were cooking. We discussed about different jobs we have been doing. Scott wanna say the job of underpay and bad working environment can be fun but by saying, “I like shitty job! …”

2.1 I drove Spencer, Scott, Tom for the house dinner shopping one day before. When we came out of Meijier and uploaded food into the trunk, Tom urged me to warm the car first because the weather was pretty cold and he didn’t wanna handle it. I pretended to believe he was caring about me like, “No, thanks. I am good…”

2.2 My car is not a good car and somehow loud from the engine. Those guys sitting in my car joked about it. Just upon we were climbing a slope, Scott kidded me like, “Oh, I wonder if we can make it with the 10 lb potatoes in the back…” People laughed and I kidded him back like, “We are surely able to make it even with 150 lb shitty Scott in the back” People laughed again, when Scott would like to fight back. I followed up like, “Actually I am sure 150 lb is an underestimate of your weight” and Spencer made it up like, “Yeah, consider it as a compliment…”

2.3 Spencer bought one bottle of expensive Tequila. Since I almost never drink and have no concept about Tequila, I asked them, “What’s the difference among Tequila? They all give you hangover, right? I thought all hangovers are good for you guys. “Scott was like, “Oh, there is good hangover and bad hangover, man.” I was like, “Just like sex? …”

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I contributed to make the turkey, corn bread, cranberry sauce and smashed potatoes. That was pretty fun for me!

1. Margo complained about nothing going on for the evening the other day on her facebook status. One of her friends replied like, “What do you mean nothing going on? Shit is falling down tonight…”

2. We were having house dinner and Celeste asked me if the next day was Friday. I said yes and asked why. She told me, “Nothing, just checking.” I was like, “All right. That’s a good question though…”

3. We were having dinner and discussing about looking for girlfriends. Jiankun tried to say beauty was not the most important by making a comment like, “I don’t understand why you guys are always looking for p