"We came to these mountains because we had no other place to go to. We had to leave our homes and possessions on the fertile lands of Illinois to make our dwelling places in these desert wilds, on barren, sterile plains amid lofty, rugged mountains. None dare come here to live until we came here, and we now find it to be one of the best countries in the world for us."

—Brigham Young (楊百翰), Journal of Discourses 10:233

Since Stacey has expressed an interest in hearing about my trip(s) to Utah (猶他州), and since it seems to me to be the most interesting thing for me to write about at the moment, that's what I'm going to write about for this entry.

June 2005

The purpose of this trip was to take Wu Mei back to Provo so she could attend the summer quarter of BYU (楊百翰大學). Mom (媽媽, 媽, or 母親), Dad, Si Mei, and I accompanied her. (For some reason I keep thinking San Di also went with us, but I don't think that's likely, as he was already married, and I don't recall his wife going with us. I suppose I'm confusing it with an earlier trip.) My recollection of this trip is a bit hazier than my recollection of the later trip, just so you know.

We left Sacramento on June 2nd. We spent most of the journey driving through Nevada (內華達州). Some people think Nevada, with the exception of the far southern and western corners, is an incredibly boring place, with its interminable stretches of basins and mountain ranges. I always look out the car windows when we drive through Nevada, though. The landscape appeals to me, for some reason. The dominant colors are usually straw yellow and gray-green which, I suppose, don't appeal to most people. This time, though, Nevada looked completely different. There had been a lot of rain in the preceding months, and the dominant colors in the landscape were a lush green color and rust red. The latter color was due to the flowering of a certain type of plant—Indian paintbrush, perhaps. Maybe it happens every year, and I've just never been through Nevada at that particular time of year, but I've never seen the landscape looking like that.

We stopped in Elko and went to the Star Hotel for dinner. My grandpa has eaten there several times before, and he recommended it to us. It's a Basque restaurant. I don't remember now exactly what we all had. I recall that we had some kind of cabbage soup to start out with. I ordered some lamb that was pretty good. I also tried some spaghetti that came with our order, but it wasn't particularly good. We all had plenty to eat, though. Then we traveled on to Utah and reached Bluffdale well after dark. Bluffdale is where one of my mom's college roommates lives, and her home is where we stayed our first night in Utah.

The next morning I used their computer to check Faithful 4ever. That ended up being the last time I used a computer during the trip. At that point I had already decided to start this weblog, and was planning it out in my mind. I made a mental note of several things I wanted to write about, but unfortunately I didn't write down much. I didn't realize it would be just over a year until I got around to writing this entry. :-P

The same morning we left Bluffdale and drove to Provo to drop Wu Mei off at her apartment. Since it was summer, there weren't a lot of people around, but Wu Mei had one roommate there. Si Mei also stayed in their apartment. Mom, Dad, and I stayed in a hotel room with a nice view of Mt. Timpanogos. I got the couch. :-D Our room had a high-speed Internet connection and ethernet cables stored in the closet. If we had brought Mom's laptop (which at the time was in the possession of San Di and his wife, but now belongs to Wu Mei), I could have gone online more than once during the trip but, oh well. Our hotel had a swimming pool, and my sisters came over to go swimming with us that evening. Somehow we got on the subject of height, and I found out that Wu Mei was 5'6", which was precisely what I had calculated Stacey's height to be, until I found out that I had made an error in converting from the metric system. So Stacey is, in fact, shorter than Wu Mei, but not by a whole lot. We weren't in the pool for very long, which I'm sure Stacey will be glad to hear. :-P

Saturday my dad, my mom, and I ate breakfast at the hotel cafeteria. I kept going back for hard-boiled eggs. I've noticed that that's one food that doesn't go very fast. *shrug* Well, somebody's got to eat them. :-D We mostly spent Saturday at Wu Mei's apartment. I don't recall everything we did, but I do remember that we made peach ice cream. In the evening we attended a performance of The Pirates of Penzance on the BYU campus. That night my parents and I spent the night at the hotel again.

Sunday morning we got up early to attend "Music and the Spoken Word", the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's weekly broadcast, in Salt Lake City (鹽湖城). One of Si Mei's (and Wu Mei's) former college roommates went with us. Since the Tabernacle is (or was at the time) being renovated to make it earthquake-safe, the broadcast was held in the Conference Center just to the north of Temple Square. Before the program started, an announcer gave us some statistics about the Conference Center auditorium. It's one of the largest auditoriums in the world. It was the first time I'd been inside, and it is, indeed, vast. I believe we were told that it has the world's largest cantilever balcony (i.e., a balcony without columns, held up only by the adjoining walls). I thought the auditorium would make a good set for a Star Wars movie. :-D Unlike the Tabernacle, the Conference Center has a large speaker hanging from the ceiling to amplify the sound from the choir and the orchestra. I can't complain, though, as it really was beautiful. I don't really remember what they sang, though. I thought I had a program for the performance, but I can't seem to find it. The announcer mentioned some of the people who were in attendance at the performance. I didn't know who most of them were, but I do remember that Senator Orrin Hatch was there, and I got a fairly close look at him.

After the performance, my family went across the street to Temple Square, where we walked around and mostly looked at flowers, as I recall. Then we returned to Provo. In the afternoon we attended Wu Mei's ward—a university student ward—for church. After dark, my mom's college roommate came by to take us to a cabin she owns in Midway. Dad and I went in our car and everybody else went in hers. I remember going to the same cabin when I was about eleven, just before I moved to California (加利福尼亞 or 加州). We also stayed there the last time I had been in Utah, which was about two years earlier, I believe. Anyway, it seems to be a tradition that we stay at the cabin a night or two whenever we go to Utah. My sisters and I all decided to sleep on the beds up in the loft, probably because that's where we slept when we were little kids.

The next day, about midday, we drove up to the mountains for a hike. Wu Mei had been up there with some friends a few months earlier. When we got to the parking lot where we parked our cars, we also found out that my parents had been to the very same place (Aspen Grove) when they were dating. That would have been in the early 1970s. The air was warm at times and quite cool at others, depending on the cloud cover. The peaks had snow on them, and the trail we followed was still damp in many places. We saw mainly three kinds of trees: oaks, maples, and aspens. One of my favorite sounds in nature is the sound of rustling leaves caused by the wind blowing through a grove of aspens. I was able to hear that sound several times during the hike. At one point the trail disappeared completely under an avalanche of snow. The aspens at the edge of the avalanche (and poking up through it) were all bent down at an angle of around forty-five degrees. Some other hikers on the trail turned back at that point, but we decided to hike over the avalanche and try to find the trail on the other side. Fortunately, it wasn't far—only about a hundred yards or so. On the other side there was a stream of water flowing out from underneath the snow. We continued on and eventually reached our destination—a waterfall. Two waterfalls, actually, because of all the rain that had fallen. The water fell down a cliff into a stream which was in a gully far below us. Part of the stream ran underneath a layer of snow, but there was a hole in the snow where some of it had fallen into the stream underneath. Dad, Wu Mei, and I tried throwing rocks into the stream through the hole in the snow. On the other side of the gully there were a few homes, and someone (I don't recall who) pointed out one them as belonging to Robert Redford. The waterfall was called Stewart Falls.

After the hike we drove back to Wu Mei's apartment in Provo and hung out there. Unfortunately, when my mom's college roommate left to go home, my luggage was still in her car, so all I had to wear was what I had on. I went with Wu Mei to visit the apartment of some of her guy friends. Originally, the plan was that I was going to stay the night in their (the guys') apartment, but that didn't work out for some reason. So instead I slept on the couch in the living room of Wu Mei's apartment, in my clothes. Si Mei slept in the same room as Wu Mei, and our parents spent the night in Bluffdale.

The next day (Tuesday) I hung out at Wu Mei's apartment and read Si Mei's birthday present—a book titled The Amulet of Samarkand. It's about a precocious young man who's studying to be a wizard: in other words, it's very similar to a Diana Wynne Jones book. ;-) On the other hand, there's something about it—and particularly its sequel, The Golem's Eye—that reminds me of Lloyd Alexander's Westmark series, for some reason. Possible influences aside, I think the books do have enough interesting ideas and characters to stand on their own merits. I can't say I'm very familiar with the state of the art in young adult and children's literature, though. Heck, I haven't even read any J. K. Rowling. :-P

That evening Si Mei went on a date with some guy she had met through Wu Mei. Meanwhile, Wu Mei and I had dinner at El Azteca. I ordered tamales. I remember going to a restaurant called "El Azteca" when we lived in Provo years ago, but it was very different. It was a real restaurant with several rooms—two stories high, if I remember correctly—, and I think it was in Orem. This El Azteca was much smaller—it looked like a small fast-food joint—, and it was just west of the BYU campus.

Eventually our parents came. We all said goodbye to Wu Mei, then the rest of us went to Bluffdale, where we spent the night. Wednesday morning Mom, Dad, Si Mei, and I started out for home. I drove the car all the way from Puckerbrush to Sparks (i.e., through much of Nevada). Speaking of Puckerbrush, I heard a couple of people speaking Mandarin at the gas station there. I thought it was kind of cool to hear Mandarin spoken in a very little town in the middle of nowhere. On the other hand, Puckerbrush does seem to be quite a popular place to get gas, and it is on a major highway, so maybe it's not that rare. *shrug*

On the subject of the unusual, we decided to eat dinner in Truckee, a little logging town up in the Sierra Nevadas. We had no idea what we'd be able to find there: we just didn't want to starve ourselves until we reached Sacramento. So we drove through town, and while we drove through somebody (not me) noticed a Thai restaurant. That sounded good to us, so we stopped there and went inside. Now, I can't say that I've been to very many Thai restaurants. In fact, I can probably count on one hand all the Thai restaurants I've been to. But I can say that Thai Nakorn in Truckee is the best one I've eaten in. I ordered the royal seafood curry, and it was wonderful. My only complaint was that it didn't have enough shrimp. (Or was it squid?) We all had to taste everybody else's dishes, because everything was really good. If I ever happen to travel between Utah and California again, I know where I'll be having dinner. :-D

After dinner we continued on to Sacramento. Once I was home, I went online and found that Stacey had sent me an e-mail. Ah, those were the days. *sigh* Perhaps I should get back into the habit of responding to e-mails from friends. :-P

August 2005

This trip was my move to Texas (德克薩斯 or 德州), of which I gave a brief outline in DNE 8. That was before I actually went on the trip, though, so I decided I ought to give you all a more detailed report.

The weekend before I left the Bay Area, my uncle (叔叔—not the one who lives in Houston) and his eldest daughter (my 堂妹) came down from Washington. (His wife and youngest daughter might have come too, but it's been long enough ago that I don't remember.) On Sunday evening we ate at his favorite Chinese restaurant, Ha's, in Danville. Among the variety of items we ordered was lemon chicken. It was pretty good, but I still think the best lemon chicken I've ever had was from Yan's in Lafayette.

On the morning of Monday, the 29th of August, I boarded the California Zephyr at the station in Martinez. I saw Sacramento for the last time from the train. A railroad historian boarded the train at the Sacramento station and gave us facts and trivia about the railroad during the journey from Sacramento to Reno. The fact that most caught my fancy was that Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific Railroad (and former governor of California), led the federal government to believe that the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas began at Arcade Creek in Sacramento because the government paid the railroad companies more money for laying tracks in mountainous terrain than in flat terrain. I also learned that the number of Chinese workers the Central Pacific Railroad employed in laying the track from Sacramento to Promontory Point, Utah, was around 10,000. Many of them fell to their deaths or were blown apart by dynamite while carving a path through the peaks of the Sierra Nevadas. The Union Pacific Railroad, which laid the track from Omaha, Nebraska to Promontory Point, employed mostly European (especially Irish) immigrants.

Just outside of Sparks the train came to a halt and we learned that our trip would be delayed because of a forest fire west of Elko. We waited for about three-quarters of an hour before the train finally got started again. When we got to Winnemucca, the train stopped and we were let outside for a time while the train operators waited for more information on the status of the fire. By then it was dark. I was glad to go outside, mostly because the air conditioning kept the inside of the train so cold. While the train was still at Winnemucca, I borrowed someone's cell phone to call my mom's college roommate and tell her I would be several hours late. We eventually got going again, but not very fast, and the train stopped every once in a while. It stopped again for about half an hour in Elko, then continued on. It was well after midnight when we left Elko, but I had trouble sleeping due to the constant stopping and starting, and especially to the coldness of the air. I saw other people with blankets, but I wasn't sure if they had brought them along or if they were stored on the train. I suppose I should have just asked someone, but for some reason I didn't.

The sun was up well before we arrived in Salt Lake. Arriving by train was a little different for me. For one thing the train went closer by the big smokestack in Magna than I had ever been before—so close, in fact, that I couldn't see its top from the train window. Also, the train entered a part of Salt Lake City that I was unfamiliar with, and I became so lost that I thought we had already reached the southeastern corner of the city until we pulled up at the station and I realized we had just barely reached downtown Salt Lake City. The train was supposed to have arrived at 3:15 AM Mountain Daylight Time, for a total of 17 hours and 21 minutes. Instead, it arrived at 6:10 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 7:10 AM Mountain Daylight Time. I was aboard the train (except for during the stop at Winnemucca) for about 20 hours and 15 minutes. In contrast, the same trip by car usually takes around 12 hours.

Mom's roommate and her husband were waiting for me when I arrived. I don't know how long they'd been there, but I think it must have been several hours. I didn't tell them when I called them how late the train would be, because I didn't know. All I knew was that it would be late. They drove me to their house in Bluffdale, and I spent most of Tuesday taking a very long nap.

It was late in the afternoon when I woke up. Mom's roommate wanted to take me to see some sights and, after a while, we settled on the Bingham Canyon Mine, a huge, open-pit copper mine owned by Kennecott Utah Copper corporation. One of the pamphlets I got said the mine is one of only two "man-made objects on earth that can be seen by astronauts from outer space", the other being the Great Wall of China (長城). I'm not sure exactly what it means by "outer space". The claim used to be that the Great Wall was the only man-made object that could be seen from the moon, but that was before men landed on the moon. Then it became clear that nothing man-made could be seen from the moon without the aid of a telescope or something, because the earth is just a little marble from that distance. On the other hand, my hazy recollection is that all sorts of man-made objects can be seen from the altitude of the space shuttle's normal orbit, so, unless my recollection's wrong, I'm not sure what to make of the pamphlet's claim without a little more specificity. *shrug* A different pamphlet (9/04 publication date) claimed that Sears Tower, which would only reach halfway up the mine, was the world's tallest building. Last I heard it was Taipei 101, although that information could be obsolete by now as well. Sketchy "facts" aside, the mine was impressive (or horrific, depending upon how you feel about humans making large changes to the earth's surface). After looking down into the mine for a while, Mom's roommate and I went inside the visitors center, watched a video, and looked at the exhibits. I never realized before that the giant smokestack in Magna was actually the smelter for the Bingham Canyon Mine. The smelter is about twenty miles north of the mine. I came out of the visitors center before Mom's roommate and looked down into the mine again. By then it was all in the shadow. I pressed a button to hear a narration in English. After that I had to listen to it again, this time in Mandarin. By then Mom's roommate had found me, and we left. My only regret was that I didn't get to see the dynamite go off, but I guess they only do that earlier in the day. :-P

After we left the mine we drove to Thanksgiving Point, a collection of shops, restaurants, etc. across the highway from Point of the Mountain. (Point of the Mountain is a ridge that extends westward from the Wasatch Range almost to Utah's Jordan River, dividing the Salt Lake Valley on the north from Utah Valley on the south.) We (or rather, Mom's roommate,) looked at some shops, and then we went to look at the flower gardens, but they were already closed. I was supposed to make contact with Wu Mei at around 7:00, so I went around looking for a phone. Eventually I reached the visitor center just as a wedding party was leaving. They were about to close up, but I went up to the front desk and asked if I could use their phone. They said I could, as long as it was a local call. I called Wu Mei and invited her for a hike up Mill Creek Canyon around noon the next day, but she was afraid it would be hot, and told me to just come to Provo afterwards. After I had made the call, Mom's roommate took me to a newly opened sporting goods store just on the other side of the highway. It was more her idea than mine, but it was rather interesting. There was an aquarium in one part of the store, and in another part there was an artificial mountain with a plane suspended above it, and trees and all sorts of taxidermied animals standing on its surface. Mom's roommate was trying to get her daughter a job at the store. Instead of going back home by the highway, we went around Point of the Mountain on Frontage Road. I didn't really know what a frontage road was at the time, but now that I've been in Texas for a while I'm quite familiar with the concept.

On Wednesday Mom's roommate and I drove to Salt Lake City to rendezvous with my aunt (姨母 or 姨媽). Then we drove up Mill Creek Canyon a ways, parked the car beside the road, and started walking up a smaller dirt road that ran off to the right (south). Our objective was to find the cabin my grandpa (外祖父, 外公, or 老爺) used to own before he sold it off in the early 1980s. On our hike up, my aunt told us stories about what she used to do in Mill Creek Canyon when she was young. The thing that most stuck in my mind was that, in the winter, she used to ride a toboggan all the way from the cabin to the road. Mom's roommate hadn't been to the cabin before, and I had only been when I was very young, so if my aunt hadn't been with us, we probably never would have found it. It looked quite different from the way it did when I had last been there, probably a quarter of a century before. The wood was no longer painted green, but brown, if I recall correctly. There was a concrete driveway, a basketball court, and a sandbox with swings out in back. When we got there, there were some little kids playing out back. When my aunt rang the doorbell, a woman came to the door. I believe she was the daughter-in-law of the people who bought the cabin after my grandpa decided to sell it. She showed us a picture album of all the renovations her in-laws had made to the cabin since they bought it. In the back of the album was a diagram of the fireplace, showing all the rocks that were set into it, and where they originally came from. The fireplace made me a bit nostalgic, since it reminded me of another fireplace much like it, at my grandpa's house. He liked to collect rocks—amethyst geodes and such. There was also a toboggan standing up by the woodpile, possibly the same toboggan my aunt used to ride, although we couldn't be sure. The woman showed us around and took a few pictures of us using Mom's roommate's camera. I seem to recall that she also gave us some cookies. :-D After we said goodbye, we walked back and ate sandwiches and vegetables that we had brought along for lunch. The weather was quite pleasant: warm, but not uncomfortably so. I think Wu Mei would have enjoyed coming along with us.

That afternoon we drove to Wu Mei's apartment in Provo. Wu Mei took me to the BYU campus to meet one of her former linguistics professors. She thought we'd have lots of interesting things to talk about, and we did. I noticed that he had a number of books in his office that I also owned. We talked about a number of subjects. It's been a little too long for me to recall the whole conversation verbatim. :-P However, I do recall that one of the subjects we talked about was Anglo-Saxon personal names. Most of them are composed of two root words, and I wondered if it would be reasonable to understand them as two separate names (as I have come to view two-character Chinese personal names), rather than as one name formed from a single compound word. I don't remember quite what the outcome of that discussion was, though.

Living in Wu Mei's apartment complex was a second cousin of ours. Neither of us had met him before he went to BYU, but he bore the surname of our maternal grandmother (外祖母, 外婆, or 姥姥), so Wu Mei suspected he was related to us somehow. Anyway, Mom's roommate drove my aunt, my second cousin, Wu Mei, and I to Bountiful for dinner.

While I attended San Francisco State University (舊金山州立大學) I belonged to the Latter-day Saint Student Association there. In fact, I was the president of the LDSSA for several years before I moved back to Sacramento. Mostly what I did was schedule a room in the student center building for us to have a weekly institute of religion class. When I first began attending institute, the class was taught by a woman who was a married graduate student, if I remember correctly. After she moved away, however, the teachers who succeeded her were elderly couples, generally from Utah, called as missionaries and sent over to San Francisco mostly for the purpose of teaching our institute classes. It was in the spring of 2004, I think, that I heard from the couple who were our institute teachers at the time that the couple who would be coming to replace them were from Woods Cross, Utah. Just a little while later my aunt called my mom and mentioned to her that one of their cousins, who lived in Bountiful (which is right next to Woods Cross), was going to be serving a mission teaching institute of religion classes in San Francisco. I waited until the new teachers arrived, and then I asked the wife if she knew my mom or my aunt. She barely remembered my mom, who is quite a bit younger than her, but knew my aunt quite well. She was excited to find out that one of her new students was her first cousin, once removed, although as far as I know we had never seen each other before then. She even invited me and my mom over to their apartment for dinner one evening. Anyway, the point of all this is that it's at their house in Bountiful that we had dinner on the evening of the 31st of August, 2005, they having recently returned home from their mission. After dinner everyone else returned to their homes, but I, being temporarily without a permanent residence, spent the rest of the week with my first cousin, once removed, and her husband.

On Thursday morning we went to Temple Square. The practical reason for the visit was that among the various books my mom had inherited from her father was an ecclesiastical record of a ward for which he had served as a clerk. My mom had given it to her cousin to take back to Utah, with the intention of returning it to the church. I happened to see it lying around in my cousin's living room and realized that it looked familiar, so I opened it up and started reading it. I soon realized that it was my own grandpa who had kept the record and, after my cousin explained where it had come from, I realized that I had seen the same book many times before in my own house, although I had never bothered to look through it until then. So, anyway, we took the book to the Church Office Building on Temple Square and offered to donate it to their library. The person who was in charge of receiving the new donation insisted that they already had their own copy in the library, but agreed to take our copy as well. In hindsight, perhaps our copy should have gone back to the ward for which it was kept instead. *shrug*

After that we walked around Temple Square and ran into various missionaries who my cousin and her husband happened to know. Northern Utah is a small world. For dinner we ate at the Lion House Pantry, a cafeteria on the ground level of the Lion House, which was one of Brigham Young's (wives') residences in Salt Lake City. His other, more official residence was the Beehive House next door, which we toured after dinner. It used to be that visitors to the Beehive house got a piece of horehound candy, to give them a small taste of nineteenth century life. Now, horehound is certainly an acquired taste, so I can understand why the folks in charge of the Beehive House don't offer it any more. What I don't get is why they offer lemon drops instead and tell the tourists that horehound is something like that. Lemon drops are lemon drops, not horehound. Instead of trying to roughly approximate a nineteenth century candy with a twentieth century candy that is more pleasing to the modern palate, why not find some other, more palatable way to bring the experiences of the nineteenth century alive to the visitors to the Beehive House? (There are few things I enjoy more than being a historical curmudgeon. ;-) Plus, I really wanted my horehound. :-P)

On Friday my cousin and her husband took me to the "This Is the Place" monument, which was dedicated on July 24, 1947 to commemorate the centennial of the arrival of the first Mormon pioneer company in the Salt Lake Valley. It was on the same day in 1847 that Brigham Young first looked down into the valley and said, "It is enough. This is the right place. Drive on." The monument is located on a hill on the north side of the mouth of Emigration Canyon, the canyon through which many pioneers (including a number of my own ancestors) passed to enter the valley.

Near the monument is the Deseret Village, a hodgepodge collection of reconstructed pioneer-era buildings from all over Utah (and possibly other states) arranged into a single village. A fee was required to enter the village, so my cousin paid for her and me to enter while her husband remained outside. As I entered the village, I immediately recognized one of the buildings there: the Pine Valley Chapel—or rather, a reconstruction of it. The real Pine Valley Chapel is located around three hundred miles to the south of Salt Lake City. I had to have my cousin take a picture of me in front of the building. We entered a few other buildings and were treated to presentations on pioneer life. The homes where guides were presently on duty had flags in front of them that looked like the Texas flag, except that the red was a dark crimson color and the "white" was more of a cream color. I suppose the flags could also be interpreted as extremely simplified versions of the flag of the United States. While we were wandering around the Deseret Village, my cousin ran into a couple she knew from Bountiful.

One of our last stops was the Deseret News print shop, where we got a demonstration of the printing process, and I helped print a sheet of the Deseret News—a copy of the first issue, in fact, which was printed on June 15, 1850. Among the items it contained were a discussion of threats by Southern congressmen to dissolve the Union, news of a fire in San Francisco, an editorial promoting the use of medicinal plants, rather than the nostrums of the day, and an obituary notice for Oliver Cowdery (考得里奧利佛).

After we left the village, I posed for some pictures: one in front of the "This Is the Place" monument, and another with a view of the Salt Lake Valley, Great Salt Lake, Oquirrh Mountains, and Magna smokestack behind me. Unfortunately, the pictures didn't turn out very well, apparently. I asked my cousin to send them anyway, but I never received them.

Friday evening, after some discussion of good classic movies to watch, we rented The Lady Vanishes, a Hitchcock movie that I had seen all of but the final few seconds before. My grandpa got a satellite dish in the early 80s, and he recorded movies on VHS tapes until they were mostly full, and then usually filled in the remainder of the tape with cartoons from the Disney channel. Unfortunately, for some reason the cartoons he recorded usually ended up overwriting the last few seconds of the final movie on the tape. This was particularly annoying with The Lady Vanishes, which was a suspense movie with a surprise ending. The movie on grandpa's tape got cut off just as the surprise was revealed. I imagined there must be some clever denouement that took place after the surprise was revealed, which was, perhaps, the main reason I chose that movie to watch. So I finally got to watch it all the way through, and I found out that there was, in fact, no denouement at all, apart from the surprise ending. *shrug*

After my cousin and her husband went to bed, I watched another movie, one from their collection, titled In a Lonely Place. It's a film noir movie with Humphrey Bogart as the main character. Of course, the main thing that caught my attention was the title, which is also the title of a Joy Division/New Order song. Bogart's character reminded me somewhat of Chen Ling (陳零) in Mars (戰神), though considerably older, of course. Maybe it's just because Mars was playing on KTSF at that time. :-P I don't recommend In a Lonely Place to the happily ever after oriented. (I'm referring to the movie, of course, but I suppose the same might also apply to the song. ;-)

Saturday, the 3rd of August, was my last day in Utah. I got up rather late due to watching the film noir movie the night before. We planned to eat lunch at a Chinese buffet at around noon, and I got up just two or three hours earlier, yet my cousin insisted I eat a big breakfast. I'm not really in the habit of eating big breakfasts. Indeed, I have a bad habit of often skipping breakfast altogether. But I did have breakfast at my cousin's insistence. So, by the time we went to lunch, I didn't have much of an appetite. I tried a number of items at the buffet, but I couldn't eat much of anything. About the only thing I was able to eat more than a few bites of was the tapioca pudding. Rather pitiful. Well, at least it wasn't a *real* Chinese restaurant. ;-)

After lunch my cousin and her husband dropped me off at the airport in Salt Lake City, where I boarded a plane to Las Vegas. It was my first plane flight in over seven years. I spent most of the flight observing the landscape below. After we passed over Utah Lake, when we were about due west of Mount Nebo, the land below us became clouded over. When the clouds broke again, I saw a lake below us, which I eventually recognized as the Little Salt Lake near Parowan. Once I knew where I was, I also recognized Cedar City, Cedar Breaks National Monument, and the sprawling town of St. George. After a few minutes we flew over Lake Mead and descended to the airport in Las Vegas. It was a very brief flight, about half an hour.

The next flight was much longer, taking up the rest of the afternoon. We set out eastward and a little south from Las Vegas. The plane flew almost directly over the Grand Canyon, so it was difficult to get a good view. I was the only person on my whole row, so I switched seats to the other (starboard) side of the plane to get a view of the landscape on that side as well. I saw a canyon on that side, but I couldn't tell for sure whether it belonged to Kanab Creek or the Colorado River itself, where it flows straight south from the Glen Canyon Dam. When we were over what I figured was eastern Arizona (亞利桑那州), the earth on both sides of the plane became clouded over again. After quite a few minutes a break appeared in the clouds, and I saw some mountain peaks, and a town in a river valley. I'm not sure exactly where it was, but it must have been somewhere over New Mexico (新墨西哥州). I later wondered if the town we had flown over was Roswell. The clouds continued with a few breaks here and there.

By the time the cloud cover dissipated enough so that I could see much of the landscape below, everything looked pretty flat. I was fairly certain that I was over Texas now, but as I was quite unfamiliar with the geography of Texas and, indeed, with the idea of recognizing elements on a landscape unbroken by mountain ranges, I was completely lost. Fortunately it was not my job to pilot the plane. ;-) We were still pretty much at cruising altitude when the sun set, but I could already see a lot of lights clustered together, which I figured was our destination. The land was no longer hidden by clouds, but it was still slightly obscured by haze in all directions. The plane swung north around a reservoir (Grapevine Lake) as it descended, then finally landed. Mom, Dad, and Si Mei met me at the airport and drove me home, which was not very far away. When I got to our new house, I noticed that our doormat read "我家" in the upper left corner and "歡迎" in the lower right corner, although the form of the "歡" looked a little odd. I figured it was probably the Japanese form of the character. Since this entry is only about my trip(s) to (and from) Utah, I'll stop here. ;-)

There is one more thing to mention: I thought it would be a long while before I'd get a chance to go back to California (let alone Utah), but it appears I'll get to go to both states this August. What's more, we now have a digital camera, and we'll be going by car, so it should be a lot of fun. And hopefully I won't wait another year before I write about it. :-P

DNE 10: Charles W. Penrose - "O Ye Mountains High"

I added another song to the playlist some days ago. Fittingly, it's "In A Lonely Place", performed by New Order. The song was actually written by Joy Division, and some rehearsal tapes of the song with Ian Curtis performing the vocals exist, but it was never performed live or released as a studio recording by Joy Division. The song was later recorded by New Order and released on the "Ceremony" single. It's the only New Order song with Stephen Morris performing the vocals.

—Matt 慕容修

There's no need to worry, everyone. Dreams Never End has not ended. I just sort of fell out of the habit of updating it and then had trouble getting back into the habit. I've been in Texas for almost three months now. I have eriador and ithilien in my room. Gorgoroth, however, is in Si Mei's room now, and that's the only computer that has Internet access. In Sacramento I used to compose my weblog entries late at night when everyone else was sleeping, but I don't think Si Mei would appreciate me typing away on the keyboard while she's trying to sleep. What I've decided to do is compose my entries on eriador in my own room and then shuttle them over to gorgoroth by way of sneakernet. That way I don't have to spend a lot of my Internet time in composition. (And composition always takes a lot of time for me.)

I've been of three minds about what to write about for this entry. I've been wavering between writing about Joy Division, my trip to Utah (in September), or Texas. I started out with an entry on Joy Division, but it got kind of long and I got kind of bored with it. So I decided to set it aside and work on an entry on Utah. I didn't really get around to that, though. Then I read Stacey's entry for November 20th, and it reminded me of something I had done—something, in fact, that I had written about in my Joy Division entry. So, I've decided to revise that entry somewhat and post it here.

In the early 80's, when I was very young, my musical taste was informed primarily by what my older brother and his friends listened to. And Da Ge was (and still is) really into what used to be called "Modern Rock" (and, after the Grunge infusion of the early 90's, was renamed "Alternative"). In the latter part of the 80's and the early 90's however, I almost completely forgot about my brother's music as I formed my own musical tastes. I preferred classical music, medieval music, and traditional folk music. Most of the music I listened to didn't have lyrics. I didn't mind vocals in music, but I saw them as mostly a distraction from the melody created by the other instruments. I didn't care for popular music at all because I didn't believe it could create the depth of feeling that I found in the music I preferred. Not that my opinion has changed much since: the music groups I like are usually exceptions to the rule, and often not terribly popular.

In the summer of 1991 my family made a trip to visit some relatives. We took two cars, and I was in the car Da Ge was driving. He had brought several of his tapes to listen to on the trip. I don't recall what was on most of them, but one of them really intrigued me: Substance. The tape had ten songs on it, Joy Division singles, arranged in chronological order. The song that I liked most was "Atmosphere", one of the later ones. I felt it was the most beautiful song I had ever heard. I'm not sure how many times I heard it at that time—probably not more than two or three—but it made an impression on me that lasted for nearly two years before I heard it again.

That same winter Da Ge left home to serve a mission. The mission rules prohibited him from listening to popular music, so my brother packed up his music into a shoebox and sealed it with tape before he left. A year and a half passed by, and "Atmosphere" faded towards the back of my mind. Then, in the spring of 1993, it began to haunt me again. I began remembering the music and even some of the words to "Atmosphere", and to "Love Will Tear Us Apart" as well. I don't recall what prompted this recollection. I'm not even sure I knew at the time. All I knew was that I had to listen to those songs again. So I found Da Ge's shoebox, peeled open the tape, and listened to the songs. I discovered that my brother owned two other Joy Division albums: Still on tape and Closer on CD, which was rather odd, because we didn't own a CD player at the time he left on his mission. I listened to all these albums fairly frequently. They must have come to Sacramento with us initially, because we moved there while Da Ge was still away. I don't remember exactly what happened when he got back. I might have told him that I broke into his music collection. If I didn't, I'm sure he noticed that the tape on his shoebox had been tampered with. What I do remember is that Substance is the first album of popular music (if you can call it that ;-) that I ever owned. I also remember that I bought my brother Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures album for Christmas one year—probably 1994.

Now, over a decade later, I have quite a collection of New Order albums, and I've lent some of them to Da Ge to listen to. (And he's lent me a Cure album.) Even better, this year the two of us attended a New Order concert in Oakland. They played several Joy Division songs. Too bad the venue had a curfew. Apparently they would have played "Atmosphere" for a second encore if there had been time. At some other dates they played both "Atmosphere" and "Your Silent Face" for encores. *sigh* I hope I haven't lost anybody. When I was writing my first draft of this entry, I started to write a condensed history of Joy Division/New Order, but I've decided that I'll just give you the band members:

Joy Division (1977-1980) - Ian Curtis (vocals), Bernard Sumner (guitar, synth), Peter Hook (bass guitar), Stephen Morris (drums)

New Order (1980-????) - Bernard Sumner (vocals, guitar), Gillian Gilbert (guitar, synth), Peter Hook (bass guitar), Stephen Morris (drums)

Except that, since 2001, Gillian Gilbert has left the band to spend more time with her children, and some guy named Phil Cunningham has taken her place. Also, Joy Division originally went by "Warsaw", but they changed their name to avoid confusion with a London punk band called "Warsaw Pakt"; they went through several drummers before they found Stephen Morris; and Bernard Sumner has changed his surname twice (from "Dicken" to "Albrecht", and then to "Sumner") while he's been with Joy Division/New Order. I hope that makes everything clear. ;-)

I've added two more songs to the playlist: "Atmosphere" and "Love Will Tear Us Apart", from Joy Division's Substance album.

This is a scan of my Substance CD cover.

One more thing, before I get to the comments: I know I haven't been nearly as sociable online since I moved to Texas as I was before. Sorry about that. I'll try to do better. But I am thankful for all my online friends. Knowing that I would still be able to communicate with you all after I moved away made this move considerably easier than it would have been otherwise. After my family moved from Fremont to Sacramento I lost contact with pretty much all of my friends in Fremont. I didn't want to move from California to Texas, but at least this move was less painful. ^_^

DNE 9: Joy Division - "Isolation"

Stacey - Of course I cross people off my celebrity crushes list if they're married. Isn't the point of having a celebrity crush that there's some (very slight) chance that you could marry the person? I don't really have a crush on Megan Lai yet. Maybe, if I get a chance to watch Silence, though.... ;-) I didn't know Stacey could be a surname either—not until I saw the cookbook. By the way, I have a recipe for scallion pancakes that I'm hoping to try out sometime, in the not too distant future.

—Matt 慕容修

I'm writing this from my grandparents' house. I've been shuttling back and forth between Sacramento and the Bay Area for the past few weeks, but this time's a little different. I'm not going back to Sacramento—not to live there, anyway. At least, not in the near term. I did apply for a job in Davis, but I didn't get it. I suppose I could have kept trying to look for work around Sacramento, but I thought about it some and decided I might as well go to Texas. I do have relatives on both sides who live in Texas. I haven't seen some of them for a decade or more, and others I've never seen, except in pictures. And, of course, there's lots of Taiwanese people in Texas, particularly in Houston. :-D (Okay, that's kind of a funny statement coming from someone who lives in California. :-P)

Last week seemed like one long party in some ways. Actually, our first party was the week earlier, on the 12th of August. We had a family party here in our grandparents' house for our relatives (on my father's side) living here in Northern California. After that we went back to Sacramento. On Saturday my uncle (姑丈) invited us (Dad, Mom, Si Mei, and I) to a Chinese restaurant for dim sum. 真好吃! Da Ge and his family came up to Sacramento that afternoon. The 14th was our last Sunday in Sacramento, so we said a lot of goodbyes. My niece (Da Ge's daughter) was quite popular at church. Some of the young women, especially, had to play with her. That night we all went to San Di's apartment in Davis for dinner. Then Si Mei and I went to our last fireside in Sacramento, after which we bade farewell to some of our friends. On Monday we had a party at my mom's friend's house, after which Da Ge and his family went back to the Bay Area. On Tuesday Si Mei's Tongan friend and a couple of her friends took Si Mei and I out for ice cream. I had a waffle cone with two scoops of mint chocolate chip ice cream. ;-) After she dropped us off at home, Si Mei's friend gave us both hugs. Since it was the last time she would see me before I left Sacramento, she gave me a really long hug. *blushes*

On Wednesday morning the guys from the packing company showed up and stuffed practically everything in the house into boxes. San Di's wife came over to our house to leave her car here, then my mom and dad drove her to the airport. She was flying to Utah to attend a cousin's wedding. Mom and Dad went straight to Da Ge's house in the Bay Area from the airport. Meanwhile, Si Mei and I went with our mom's friend (the one who had a party for us on Monday) to downtown Sacramento to pick up San Di from work. Then I packed my stuff into San Di's car, and San Di drove Si Mei and I down to the Bay Area. We all had dinner at Da Ge's house, after which we drove to my grandparents' house. One of the reasons we drove down here was to drop off our table. We've had this table for as long as I can remember, and I didn't know until recently that it actually belonged to my grandparents, and we were just borrowing it. o_O We traded it for one they had in their kitchen. Then the rest of my immediate family went back to Sacramento and I remained here in the Bay Area.

On Thursday the 18th the movers came to our house in Sacramento and packed our boxes into the moving van. At least, that's what I assume happened; I wasn't there. On the 19th Dad, Mom, and Si Mei traveled to Provo, where they dropped Si Mei off at Wu Mei's apartment. The government's paying for Mom and Dad to move to Texas, but not for me or Si Mei, since we're not minors. So, anyway, Mom and Dad are on their way to Texas by way of Utah. Not the most direct route, perhaps, but it'll get them there and allow them to visit some relatives along the way. From Provo they went to St. George, and from St. George they went to Page, Arizona. Tonight they should be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and tomorrow night they should be in Wichita Falls, Texas. From there it's a short drive to our new home.

As for me, I'll be here in the Bay Area until Monday (the 29th). On Monday I'm taking the train from Martinez to Salt Lake City. There I'll be staying with some relatives on my mom's side, and I'll also get to see Wu Mei. Then, on Saturday, I'll be flying from Salt Lake City to Dallas/Fort Worth. I don't think I'll get to see Si Mei in Utah because she has a job in Texas that she has to get to, so she'll be flying out sometime before I arrive. I don't know whether I'll get much of a chance to use the Internet between Monday and Saturday.

I'm not sure exactly why I'm here at my grandparents' house. I guess it's to do yardwork and help prepare meals while my aunt (姑媽, but not the same 姑媽 who's married to my Taiwanese 姑丈) is on a cruise to Alaska. And also to use the computer and watch television. ;-) One thing I like about my grandparents' house is that they get cable. My favorite channels are the History Channel, the Sci-Fi Channel, the Retro-Active Channel (post-punk and new wave music), and, of course, KTSF, the local Asian channel. Which reminds me: I found out some time ago that the girl who plays Qing Mei in Mars, Megan Lai (賴雅妍), is the same girl who played Mi Mi in Meteor Garden II O_O I thought she looked familiar. They're such different roles, though. I'm considering adding her to my list of crushes, but I haven't decided to yet.

I was recently reminded, though, of a girl who ought to have been on my list of celebrity crushes—except that I'd never seen her onscreen before. Over a year ago I happened to be looking at some sci-fi entertainment magazine, reading about the (then) upcoming Battlestar Galactica television series. I vaguely remember watching the original when I was much younger, so I was somewhat interested in the new one. Anyway, I saw a picture of a girl who's in the series, and I instantly had a crush on her. *blushes* Her name is Grace Park, and she plays Lt. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii. Well, actually she's really a Cylon, one of the bad guys. :-( But I still like her, even if she's evil. ;-) I hadn't been able to watch any of the episodes until last Friday, which is how she managed to slip my mind until recently. Okay, I just found out she's married. *crosses her off the list* :-P

Well, I think that's about it for what's been going on in my life recently. A number of things happened in July that I wanted to share with you all, but I'll just share one thing for now. On the 12th of July Si Mei and I took the train down to the Bay Area to stay with our grandparents for a few days. On the way from the train station to her house, Grandma stopped at a store in Pleasant Hill to look for a wedding present. While we were there I found some cookbooks that were on sale. I remembered writing here that I wanted to learn to make some Chinese dishes, so I looked for a Chinese cookbook. I found one for only $4. What's more, its author was named Jenny Stacey. I knew I had to get it. ;-) I had enough money to pay for it myself, but Grandma paid for it anyway.

It wasn't until the 20th of July that I got around to making my first Chinese dish: lemon chicken. I made it for Mom, Dad, and me. At the time, Si Mei was in Pennsylvania visiting a friend and flirting with Amish guys. (Okay, so I made up the last part. :-P) Anyway, the recipe called for sweet sherry, and I knew we didn't have any. After discussing it some with my mom, I decided to use red wine vinegar instead. That was one mistake. The other mistake was partly my mom's fault. She's used to adding more lemon juice than recipes call for, so she advised me to do the same with the lemon chicken recipe. The result was that the sauce ended up exceedingly tart with a pinkish hue (due to the red wine vinegar). We added huge amounts of sugar to the sauce to sweeten it up, but we couldn't get rid of the vinegar taste completely. There was really nothing we could do for the color either. It didn't taste too bad once it was finished, but I considered it a failure overall. *sigh* I hope I get it right eventually. In the meantime, maybe I should try something a little more simple, like fried rice.

I've mentioned before that some of the titles I've used are from song lyrics, but I think I ought to give credit for them directly from now on. So, here are the credits for my entry titles up to now:

DNE 1 ("Touching from a distance"): Joy Division - "Transmission"
DNE 3 ("Pleasures and wayward distractions"): Joy Division - "Isolation"
DNE 5 ("In another part of the world"): Talking Heads - "Once In A Lifetime"
DNE 6 ("Spun right round"): Dead or Alive - "You Spin Me Round" (which was played at the dance I described in the entry)
DNE 8 ("A change of state"): Joy Division - "New Dawn Fades"

Not all of the titles are direct quotes.

One more thing: on Saturday I received an e-mail from Stacey. ^_^

Niki - Nosy people annoy me. If anything interesting happens to me in the future, I'll post what details I see fit to post. :-P Hmm...you were the first to comment, but Jen and Ria both beat you to the quiz. :-P Well, I didn't remember the "pervy elf fancier" thing being brought up in OIAL, but then, I wasn't around during the Elder Days of OIAL (from the founding of the forum until September 20, 2003, when I joined ;-).

Ria - I hope I didn't confuse you too much with this entry. :-P The reason I put the winking smiley by your name is that you don't have a weblog, and you keep saying how shy you are. I really didn't expect you to be the first to respond to the quiz. Thanks for the prayers. ^_^ Well, I hope I get married before I turn 32. That's less than four years away. O_O Hmm...boys are stereotypically vain? And you like WWE? O_O I would never have suspected it.

Emi - Thanks for responding to the quiz thing. "Yan Yan" is Chinese, right? Do you know what character it is? Why don't you like your height—do you think you're too tall? :-P Lol, I noticed you and Ria answered the "physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to you" question exactly the same. You sure say "Iono" a lot.

Stacey - I don't go by "Uncle Mattie": that's what other people call me. :-P
Quote: [You've got really nice eyes! And i like your hair. :D] Aww...*blushes* ^_^
Quote: [Matt, good luck hunting for your Songee/Jing Jing/Li Qian (?)/(Shan Cai) ^.~] You didn't have to include Shan Cai, you know. ;-) Thanks, Stace. ^_^

Jen - Actually, it's true. When Stacey posted her answers to the quiz, I was thinking about how I would answer the questions as I was reading them. When I got to the "physical things about the opposite sex" question, I was a bit taken aback that Stacey mentioned hair and eyes, because I had already thought of them as answers for the "physical things you like about yourself" question. You don't have to believe me, though. :-P You've mentioned Kang twice in connection with me now. Who's this Kang person?

Mery - Welcome to Dreams Never End. Thanks for the compliment. :-D Your URL doesn't seem to be working. :-P

—Matt 慕容修

Stacey has used her powers of persuasion on me to get me to take this survey, so here it is:

Three names you go by:
1. Matthew 2. Matt 3. 慕容修 ;-)

Three screen names you have had:
1. ashnazg 2. ionstream 3. Titaanzink

Three physical things you like about yourself:
1. eyes
2. hair (when it's behaving)
3. legs (because they're the only part of my body that's in shape)

Three physical things you don't like about yourself:
1. chest (a bit too flat)
2. stomach (not flat enough!)
3. hands (because my fingers are too short)

Three parts of your heritage:
1. English 2. Danish 3. Scottish

Three things that scare you:
1. heights
2. driving (well, not so much anymore, but it used to really scare me)
3. being expected to speak in front of people

Three of your everyday essentials:
1. glasses 2. computer 3. watch (even though I dislike wearing the things)

Three of your favorite musical artists:
1. Joy Division/New Order 2. Kraftwerk 3. Smashing Pumpkins

Three of your favorite songs:
1. Atmosphere (Joy Division)
2. Digital (Joy Division)
3. In A Lonely Place (Joy Divison/New Order)

Three things you want in a relationship:
1. friendship 2. kindness 3. affection

Three LIES:
1. I'm an excellent student
2. I'm p*rf*ct :-P
3. I think I'm better than other people

Three TRUTHS:
1. I'm quiet (offline, anyway)
2. I think a lot (maybe too much ;-)
3. I don't get to bed as early as I should ;-)

Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to you:
1. face 2. eyes 3. hair (especially with bangs ^_^)

Three of your favorite hobbies:
1. read 2. listen to music 3. write

Three things you want to do really badly now:
1. find a suitable career
2. get broadband :-D
3. get married (really badly, perhaps, but certainly not hastily!)

Three careers you're considering/you've considered:
1. historian 2. linguist 3. network/systems administrator

Three places you want to go on vacation:
1. Taiwan (never been there)
2. Great Britain (never been there)
3. Southern Utah (haven't been there for ages)

Three kid's names you like:
1. Emily 2. Judith 3. Elizabeth

Three things you want to do before you die:
1. get married 2. have a family 3. speak Mandarin fluently ;-)

Three ways that you are stereotypically a boy:
1. I don't like dressing up
2. I like to tease and play devil's advocate
3. Shopping bores me, unless it's shopping for books, music, computer equipment, or software

Three ways that you are stereotypically a girl:
1. I get emotional (depressed or touched) easily, but I don't like to be seen when it happens. (Hmm...does that last part belong in the "stereotypically a boy" list? ;-)
2. I'm not very interested in sports.
3. I've enjoyed reading/watching Jane Austen novels, Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, Meteor Garden I/II, My Love Patzzi, etc., and will even (sometimes) admit it.

What, just three? ;-)

Three celeb crushes:
1. Li Qian 李倩, Granary of the World (天下糧倉)
2. Jang Nara 張娜拉, My Love Patzzi (紅豆女之戀)
3. Xu Weilun 許瑋倫, Love Storm (狂愛龍捲風)
(I don't really have crushes on actresses so much as on roles that they play.)

THREE people I would like to see take this quiz:
1. Niki 2. Emi 3. Ria ;-)

A few comments: the above lists are not necessarily in any kind of order, except for the celeb crushes and screen names lists, which are in chronological order. ;-) The favorite songs list is by no means set in stone. It was very difficult for me to narrow it down to just three. Two that almost made the cut: "Ceremony" (Joy Divison/New Order) and "Your Silent Face" (New Order). Stace and Jen, I swear I wasn't referring to your answers to the "physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to you" question when I answered the "physical things you like about yourself" question. ;-) Heh. I think it took me longer to come up with the "stereotypically a boy" list than it did to come up with the "stereotypically a girl" list. *blushes*

I don't really have time for a journal entry right now, but I suppose I'd better at least notify the folks reading this weblog of a few things going on in my life right now. My parents are on a house-hunting trip in Texas right now. Si Mei and I are holding down the fort here in Sacramento, but we're about to go to my grandparents' house in the Bay Area, where we'll be for the rest of this week. We'll be caring for my grandpa, who has trouble getting around, while my grandma is visiting relatives in Utah. Also, it looks like both Si Mei and I are going to be living in Texas, at least for the near term. I think I indicated that I'd be leaving Sacramento in my previous entry, though.

Stacey - A guy's grief is a girl's amusement, eh? I'm glad to be of service. :-P I would think that a group of Shan Cais holding huge Vic banners would be hugging the banners, not me. But if they didn't have Vic banners to hug, maybe they'd hug me instead. ^_^

Emi - Welcome back, Emi! I missed you. Thanks for the sympathy. ^_^ *hugs Emi* I first mentioned Berkeley girl in the 9th paragraph of DNE 3 ("Pleasures and wayward distractions"). But, to answer your question, yes, she attends U.C. Berkeley (and lives in the city of Berkeley as well) and no, I don't attend that university (and never have), although I have been on the campus several times before.

—Matt 慕容修

I was going to make another journal-like entry to catch everyone up for the past three (!) weeks, but I have something else I want to write about now.

Last night was a dance, one I've been looking forward to all week. Why? Well, last Sunday there was a fireside, and after the fireside I noticed a certain girl who was wearing a blue/white striped blouse and a khaki skirt. At first I thought she might be A Rong (阿蓉), but after getting a better look I saw she wasn't. (I think I'm going to have to tell my OIAL friends about A Rong sometime, but not now.) But the girl didn't look Hmong, either. She looked Chinese, as far as I could tell, and she wasn't hanging around any Hmong people, just white folks. I didn't want to just go up to her and start a conversation with her because I didn't know her, and nobody had introduced us. I thought, though, that since she was at the fireside it was conceivable that she would also be at the dance. I decided that, if that was the case, I would ask her to dance. I was curious about where she was from and if she spoke Mandarin. Also, of course, she was cute. ;-)

So last night was the dance. I drove there alone because Si Mei is currently visiting a friend in Pennsylvania. It was a very good dance, in my opinion. There were three or four techno songs, which is about as much as I can expect. Also, there were six slow songs, which is also highly unusual. For the first slow song I asked a friend of Si Mei's who was there and who I hadn't danced with for a long time if, indeed, I ever had.

Before the second slow song, I noticed a couple of Asian girls who were standing by an Asian guy and a very tall white guy. One of the girls was wearing a dark blouse with a khaki skirt. I wasn't certain at first, but I eventually decided that she probably was the girl I had noticed at the fireside. A song that sounded like a slow song came on while I was very near her, so I darted over to her and asked her to dance. She agreed, but all of a sudden the song sped up. She asked if I still wanted to dance, but I told her I'd come back for the next slow song.

When the second slow song finally came on, I went over to where I had seen the girl in question, but she was dancing with the tall white guy. So I asked the other Asian girl to dance. I found out she was Hmong, which led me to the conclusion that the girl in the khaki skirt was most likely also Hmong.

During the fast dances I danced with the Hmong group from my Stake that I usually dance with. Of course, during the techno songs I found an open space to dance where I wasn't in much danger of hitting anybody. That wasn't difficult because the attendance at this dance was a bit lower than normal. Anyway, this Hmong girl in a magenta top showed up at the dance with a Hmong guy. From what I could tell, they were very, um, close. The girl was pretty cute, and as I looked at her a sudden realization came upon me. One of the Hmong girls I'm most familiar with has red highlights in her hair, so I'll call her the "redhead". ;-) Anyway, I asked the redhead, and she confirmed for me that the the Hmong girl in the magenta top was, indeed, Berkeley girl. :-( Okay, so she's a lot younger than me anyway, but still....

Speaking of which, during the third slow song I hurried over to where the girl in the khaki skirt was, only to see her dancing with the same guy again. I was about to turn back and find one of my (sister's) Hmong friends to dance with, when a girl came up to me and asked me to dance. A white girl, just so you know. She's from Woodland. Pretty cute, too. I decided to ask her age. She was 18, of course. :-P

After watching the girl in the khaki skirt dance two slow songs with the same guy, I began to give up hope of dancing with her. I didn't really want to come between them. Then again, it occurred to me that it was just a dance, and I would return her safe and sound once it was over, so what was the problem? If you knew what I was like when I was in high school, you would know how revolutionary this kind of thought is to me. I didn't use to have such weed power. ;-) So, anyway, when the fourth slow song came on I went right back to the girl in the khaki skirt just in time to see some other guy ask her to dance. Okay, so I didn't achieve my purpose. But I now knew that she didn't just dance with that tall white guy I saw her with, and I also knew that there would be at least one more slow dance. I asked one of the Hmong girls who's Wu Mei's age (younger, in fact) to dance for the fourth slow song. What is it with me and younger girls? :-P

Before the closing prayer, the DJ announced that there would be two more slow songs. I figured the khaki-skirted girl might want to dance the last dance with the tall guy, but there was no reason why she couldn't dance the penultimate dance with someone else, right? So, when the fifth slow song came on I went right up to her and asked her to dance. She assented. It was a rather odd slow song. It was a little fast, actually, and sounded sort of like a swing song—but not a really fast swing song. Once I'd got acclimated to the tempo, though, I was focused more on our conversation. I found out that she was, indeed, Hmong. In fact, she was the older sister of the girl I had danced with during the second slow song. She had recently moved up here from Chico. I didn't ask her age, but she's a graduate, so I figure she must be at least 22. *shrug* 22's not too bad, I guess. We quite got into our conversation, which continued even after the song ended and the sixth (and final) slow song came on.

As we were finishing up our conversation, a guy who's in my Stake came up to me. Actually, I'm not sure if he was looking for me or just wandering around. But, anyway, I told him to ask the khaki-skirted girl to dance. I was slightly surprised at what I was doing, but I didn't see the tall white guy hanging around in the vicinity, so I figured she could use somebody to dance with. For the last dance, I asked the redhead to dance. She asked me how I had enjoyed the dance, and I mentioned that I liked it because there had been a lot more slow songs and techno songs than usual. The redhead told me that she doesn't like slow songs, and she's not fond of techno songs either.

I have to say that I had more fun at that dance than at any dance I've been to in recent memory. I also talked with girls a lot more than I usually do. Well, except online. ;-) When the dance was over I was really happy that I had been to it. Now, just as I'm about to leave Sacramento, is when I'm feeling the most like I belong here.

After the dance was over and the lights came on, I wandered around a bit, and I happened to catch sight of a girl wearing an olive green button-down shirt and blue jeans. As soon as I saw her I recognized her as the girl who had caught my notice at the fireside last Sunday, the one who I had been looking forward to dancing with all week. o_O She was with a small group of white folks, mostly girls, and she really did look Chinese. I stole a few glances at her, but the dance was over and I really didn't know what to do, so I went outside, got in the car, and drove home.

Jen - According to my dictionary, a dullard is a "stupid, insensitive person". And you're right: after a thorough analysis of Lei's character I have determined that he is not, in fact, a dullard. ;-) And I will become a Lei & Shan Cai shipper when I feel like it, not when you tell me to. :-P

Ria - I'm glad you liked it. ^_^ I'm afraid I don't know what S.P.E.W. is. Which book is it from? (I've only seen the second and third movies, and haven't read any of the books.) Okay, I'll keep in mind that I still owe you (and Niki and Len) a *real* Lei-y post, sometime in the future, when I get around to it. ;-)

Stacey - Well, that story/script was the one I warned you about. I don't know if I'll ever go back to being as curmudgeonly as I was (or pretended to be) during the OIAL days, so you probably don't have too much to fear from me. ;-) And, for the record, I never thought Lei was a dullard—I only said it to tease all the Lei gushers. :-P Okay, if I see a couple of Shan Cais show up at my doorstep I'll know what to do (and what not to do). ;-)

Niki - Are you a pervy elf fancier, Niki? :-P I don't recall that exact phrase from OIAL (I got it from TheOneRing.net.), although some people seemed to bring up Orlando Bloom quite frequently. I guess you would be the founder of Fireworks 4ever, but what would Len be—the co-founder? Unfortunately, we've lost track of almost all of the Lei gushers from the early days of OIAL—you and Ria being the exceptions. :-(

—Matt 慕容修

Today is a very special day. It's the 15th birthday of one of my best friends—Stacey. ^.^ Of course, her birthday's pretty much over in her part of the world, but it's just getting started here in the Pacific timezone. Happy birthday Stace! *hugs Stace* ^_^ Now I can't say I'm twice your age anymore. :-P

I don't really have the time now to make a journal-like entry, but I did finally finish something I began over a year ago, when the Once In A Lifetime forums were still functioning. It's a script, like those used for stage plays, television shows, and movies. The idea came about because of the effort that Ria, Stacey, and Emi (and Jen?) were putting into persuading me to join the Lei side. :-P I didn't have much time to flesh out the details at the time, and the opportune moment passed. Then, in the fall of 2004, the same girls tried to get me to tell them whether I preferred Lei or Dao Ming Si as Shan Cai's boyfriend. The idea came back to me, and I added to it, but again I missed the opportune moment. Then the forums disappeared. :-(

So, anyway, I figured Stacey's birthday was an opportune moment to finally write it out and publish it. Since I set a deadline for myself, it may not be as good as if I had taken more time, but oh well. *shrug* I didn't write it all out until this week, and some details, such as the allusions to the Fourth of July and Meteor Garden marathons are very recent additions. Nevertheless, the overall tone reflects the situation in the Once In A Lifetime forums over a year ago when this idea first occurred to me, so you might like to think of it as a lost post of mine that was recently salvaged from those forums. I hope this reminds you all of OIAL. ;-)

A kitchen in a suburban Northern California home. Titaanzink is unscrewing the lid off a jar of peanut butter. Once the lid is off, he picks up a spoon that is lying beside the jar. The doorbell rings. Titaanzink hesitates for a moment, then lays the spoon down and walks to the door. He opens it to find two teenage Asian girls, smartly dressed in black T-shirts, blue jeans, and pink backpacks, standing before him. Each has several paperback books and jewel cases tucked under one arm.

TITAANZINK: For the last time, I'm not interested in becoming a pervy elf fancier!
1ST GIRL: We're not pervy elf fanciers.
TITAANZINK (eyeing them suspiciously): You're not?
2ND GIRL: No, we're representatives of Fireworks 4ever. Have you heard of us?
TITAANZINK (looking around cautiously): You're not going to try to sell me illegal fireworks, are you?
2ND GIRL: No!
TITAANZINK: Good. I don't think you'd get much business now, anyway. The Fourth of July is already over, and they don't celebrate Pioneer Day in California.
2ND GIRL: We're not selling fireworks! It's kind of complicated to explain, but the "fireworks" part of our name comes from a television series—one of the best series ever created.
TITAANZINK (hopefully): VR.5?
2ND GIRL: No.
TITAANZINK: Deep Space Nine, then?
2ND GIRL: No! (She pauses to regain her composure.) Listen, can you just hear us out for a few minutes?
TITAANZINK: I suppose so, but try not to take too long. I have, uh, important things to do.
2ND GIRL: I'll try to be as brief as I can. Have you by chance ever heard of a series called Meteor Garden?
TITAANZINK: Oh, isn't that the one with Qing He in it? I really liked that series.
2ND GIRL (beginning to smile): Well, I'm glad you've heard of it. Many people here in the U.S. haven't, so we have to explain the plot to them, but since you're already familiar with it, I'm sure you remember the scene where Lei sets off the fireworks for Shan Cai, right?
TITAANZINK: Oh, I see—you're all Lei gushers aren't you?
1ST GIRL: We're Lei/Shan Cai shippers.
TITAANZINK: Which usually amounts to the same thing.
2ND GIRL: Anyway, we have two major purposes: the first is to get more people interested in the series, and for that purpose we have these copies of Meteor Garden as well as Boys Over Flowers, the Japanese manga it was based on. (She takes out one of the jewel cases and holds it up for Titaanzink to see.)
TITAANZINK (starting to get interested): Are they free?
2ND GIRL: Free?! Do you know how much it costs to buy these videos from Yesasia?
TITAANZINK: Well, couldn't you just find someplace to download them for free?
2ND GIRL: Not legally! Anyway, the mangas are $12 per volume, if you want to buy them. The videos are $95 for Meteor Garden and $160 for Meteor Garden II but we also have free viewings at some of our members' houses. We've had Meteor Garden marathons in San Francisco and Union City, so far. Would you like to come to one?
TITAANZINK: Would I be the only guy there?
1ST GIRL: Chances are you'd be the first guy ever to show up.
TITAANZINK (pondering): Well, it sounds quite tempting the way you two put it, but you never said what the other purpose of your organization is.
2ND GIRL: Oh, well we're a group of people who weren't too happy with the way Meteor Garden II ended.
TITAANZINK: I know. It's painful to watch two people who deserve each other so much not end up together. Shan Cai didn't know what she was missing out on.
1ST GIRL (sighing): Aww, you're going to make me cry.
2ND GIRL (smiling): Finally, a guy with whom we can have an intelligent discussion on Meteor Garden!
TITAANZINK: Well, at least Mi Mi saw his finer qualities.
2ND GIRL (seriously disturbed): WHAT?!!
1ST GIRL (confused): Mi Mi? Don't you mean A Mei?
TITAANZINK: No, A Mei was that girl who wanted to be Lei's girlfriend, right? Mi Mi is the one who was chasing after Qing He.
2ND GIRL: You think Qing He deserves Shan Cai?!
TITAANZINK: Well, if not him, who then? Certainly not that pighead, Dao Ming Si?
1ST GIRL: No, Lei!
TITAANZINK: Well, Lei's not a bad guy, even if he seems to be a bit of a dullard much of the time, but he's certainly no comparison to Qing He.
2ND GIRL (outraged): Lei is not a dullard!
TITAANZINK (shrugging): Perhaps not, but I'm not sure what the attraction is at any rate.
(At this point the 2nd girl is fuming and the 1st girl looks as if she's about to cry.)
TITAANZINK (slightly nervous as he observes the girls' reactions): Well, it was enjoyable talking to you, but I'm rather busy, and I'm sure you have other people to talk to who have never heard about Meteor Garden or Hua Ze Lei, so...um, good luck!
(He closes the door, turns around, and rubs his hands together.)
TITAANZINK: Muahahahahaha!
(He begins to walk back to the kitchen but, after several steps, slows down until he comes to a complete stop. He frowns.)
TITAANZINK: Well, that wasn't very nice of me, was it? I suppose I could have at least invited them in for ice cream and cookies, or something.
(After a brief pause he turns around and heads back for the door. He opens it and steps outside. He looks around, but the two girls are nowhere to be seen. Titaanzink sighs quietly, then turns back towards the door, where his gaze is instantly caught by a red tag affixed to it. Cue ominous music.)

I hope you liked my birthday present to you, Stace. As you probably noticed, I used you as a model for the 2nd girl. I hope you don't mind. :-P And sorry about the "dullard" bit. It was already in the script. I promise not to say it again. Also, did you notice the LOTR reference? :-P Oddly enough, that wasn't a recent addition.

—Matt 慕容修

It's been a very busy week for me. I probably won't have the time this week to make a proper entry, so you may just have to content yourselves with this, the world's shortest JD/NO FAQ. If there's any information that is vital to obtaining an understanding of Joy Division or New Order, this is probably it. ;-)

Q: What's that instrument that sounds like an electric bass being played a few octaves too high?

A: It's an electric bass being played a few octaves too high.

Jen - I never knew I had good handwriting. I always thought it was rather sloppy.

Stacey - You can keep me away from Qi Luo, but you can't keep me away from everyone. :-P Though I'm not entirely sure that I'd go well with Song Er. Then again, I'm probably somewhere between Cheng Jun and Xian Cheng personality-wise, so who knows? I don't really know why I sighed so much in that entry. I guess I just had a lot to sigh about.

Jen - Well, how much can I like a girl I've only spoken to briefly a couple of times? Then again, that describes a lot of pretty girls I've met. *sigh* .... Jen, you paired me up with four girls! :-D (Well, if you count Song Er and Jang Nara separately.) Thanks, but there's no need to make Mrs. Hua Ze Zhou Wang (Only three guys, if you count Vic and Lei separately.) envious. :-P

Stacey & Jen - My message to Song Er is actually a line from My Love Patzzi spoken by Xian Cheng. I think I remembered it correctly, but it was a year and a half ago that I saw it, so I can't be certain.

—Matt 慕容修

I never promised to write another journal-like entry, so this one's just a bonus, understand? This one's titled. Like the first entry, the title's from a Joy Division lyric. It probably won't be as relevant to this entry as the first title was to its entry, though.

When I went to dances during my high school years, I only danced the slow songs and sat out all the fast dances. For me, fast dances were just another way to make a fool of yourself. But if I sat out the fast songs at the Young Single Adult dances they have nowadays, I'd hardly dance at all.

Anyway, it wasn't until some YSA dance about three years back that I actually sort of danced during some fast songs. I was with Si Mei, Wu Mei, and a group of their Hmong friends. They were all dancing to the fast songs, so I decided that I might as well join them. I put a sort of half-hearted effort into it at first. Then "Bizarre Love Triangle" came on, and I knew I would have to put my best effort into dancing to it. So I did.

I think that was the last dance I ever attended until about a year ago. And it's just in the past half-year that I've been attending dances with regularity. Slow songs are usually few and far between, so I've had to learn how to dance—my two main influences being Ian Curtis, the lead singer for Joy Division, and the little drummer girl in New Order's "Run" video. During the rap and R&B songs, with their leaden beats, I just sort of sway to the beat with the rest of the group, but during the (very few) songs with a techno beat, I have to find an empty spot so I can thrash about without too much fear of colliding into someone else.

So, last Friday, the 24th of June, we had a YSA dance, and Si Mei was in charge of it. We got to the church building about three hours before it started to prepare the refreshments, put up the decorations, and help the DJ bring in his equipment.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the theme of the dance was "decades". The DJ played mostly music from this decade or the 90s, with songs from prior decades only once in a while. I recognized two songs as being from the 80s: Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and the B-52s' "Love Shack". The same two 80s songs they always play. *sigh*

Once the dance got started, I danced the first few fast dances with Si Mei's Tongan friend and a group of Latinas. After a while I joined the Hmong group. Then, near the end of the dance, I joined the Tongan/Latinas group again. For part of the time I took advantage of my official status as a member of the hosting Stake to flee the dance floor and take refuge in the kitchen. Well, actually, it turned out that my presence there was useful because the water cooler was almost empty, so I ferried pitchers of water between the kitchen and the cooler until it was quite full again.

For the first slow song, Si Mei's Tongan friend asked me to dance. I'm afraid with all this fast dancing that I've somewhat forgotten the fine art of slow dancing, but I'm getting better at that too, I think.

About a hundred fast songs later, I was dancing with the Hmong group when the second slow song came on. Whenever that happens, it seems the girls (most of them) let out a collective groan of disappointment and hurry over to the chairs lining the wall. Not being a girl, I can't say I share the feeling. Anyway, as I had been dancing I had my eye on one of the Hmong girls. When the slow song came on she turned around to leave. Since she was facing away from me, I touched her arm to get her attention, then asked her to dance. I had danced with her once before, about two months earlier, and I thought she was the same girl, but I wasn't sure until I asked what her name was. She attends U.C. Berkeley, so she's only in Sacramento once in a while. Our conversation sort of ended and I looked around the room, but my gaze kept returning to her pretty face. Near the end of the song, I decided to ask her age. She's only 19. *sigh* What happened to all the girls my age? When the song ended, she touched my arm and thanked me for the dance. I'm used to being thanked for dances—it's all part of the ritual; but I'm not used to girls touching me on the arm. Of course, maybe she was getting me back for how I got her attention at the beginning of the song. ;-)

To answer the question in my last paragraph, at least one of the girls my age was there at the dance. I don't think I'd seen her for several years. So, for the last dance, I asked her to dance. Not as pretty as the Berkeley girl, in my opinion, but I talked with her quite a bit more.

Saturday afternoon I began a long-delayed e-mail to Stacey. I made pretty good progress until Si Mei said it was time for me to help her with dinner. So I saved my draft and helped her make clam chowder. I was the one who chopped the onions. Once we'd got the chowder started, Si Mei informed me that it was my responsibility to make cornbread. Not just ordinary cornbread, but a special recipe that included creamed corn, cheese, and two onions. Fortunately, we only had one onion left, which I chopped. We had hardly any cheese left for the cornbread. While things were cooking, Mom brought Dad home from work and Wu Mei called. Si Mei took the phone into her bedroom and Mom and Dad disappeared into theirs. Meanwhile, I had a question about the cornbread recipe and I was also wondering just how long the chowder had to boil for—if it was supposed to boil. *sigh* Well, at least the potatoes in the chowder were well-cooked by the time Si Mei returned to the kitchen. I don't like half-cooked potatoes.

I mentioned in my last entry that my Stake has seven congregations—"wards", as we call them. Well, on Sunday there was a special meeting of three of those wards, including mine. The purpose of the meeting was to announce the creation of a fourth ward out of the three, making eight wards total for the Stake. Of the three original wards, mine was the least affected by the changes—it just gained a few families from one of the other wards. One of those families is good friends with my family, though.

In the evening, both Da Ge and San Di and their families came over for dinner. Si Mei had a YSA leadership meeting to attend, though, so she and I had to leave before they arrived. The meeting was at a church building in Rancho Cordova known as the "Mormon Center". Next to the Mormon Center, the Sacramento Temple is currently under construction. It's just a steel and concrete frame right now, so it looks pretty ugly. Once it's finished, it should look pretty nice, though. I decided to sit on a couch in the lobby and read while Si Mei was in her meeting.

After the planning meeting, there was a fireside for all the Young Single Adults (i.e., not just the leaders) that was held in the chapel. I was there for the fireside, not the leadership meeting. We only have one car, though, so that's why I had to go early with Si Mei.

I imagine firesides were once rather informal meetings held in people's living rooms, hence the name. What they call firesides these days are rather formal meetings held in chapels with no fireplaces, and with invited speakers. The speaker at this fireside was a woman who was very much involved in politics and thought we all should be as well. Her talk was mostly on the founding of the United States—political and military history, which I found interesting. Not the sort of thing I expect at a fireside, but I suppose the proximity of Independence Day does provide a reasonable excuse. What I liked most was that she went through all three verses of "The Star-Spangled Banner". We usually only sing the first verse, but it's funny to think that the whole verse is just one long question that is never answered—that is, unless you bother to sing the other verses. In essence, the verse that we always sing says: "Is the U.S. flag still flying over Fort McHenry?"

We got home just as San Di and his wife were leaving. It appears that Si Mei and I will be going with them to the Marin County Fair on Saturday, so I may not be online much (or at all) that day.

Da Ge, his wife, and their daughter spent the night at our house. On Monday, I spent much of my time with them. We took them to a local park so my niece could play around there. She really liked going down the slides. Mom, Da Ge, and I all went down the slide with her, while my sister-in-law took pictures.

At family home evening there were eight of us this week. Not bad. Si Mei gave a lesson on prayer.

Tuesday morning I tried to learn what I could about SQL, a language used for database queries. It's interesting in the sense that all new knowledge is interesting, but other than that it was pretty boring. Bah! Who needs databases? If you can't keep everything in ordinary text files, you're trying to do too much. ;-) This is all job-related, since I've found that many network administration jobs require knowledge of SQL. Unfortunately, although I didn't find the task of learning SQL very stimulating, I managed to lose track of time and use up my free time (Mom's nap time) on SQL.

In the afternoon I messed around on my own two cast-off computers. Eriador is a 1995-vintage Micron P90 with 24 MB of RAM. It has two hard disks, the first of which is currently unoccupied, the second of which runs Slackware Linux 7. Ithilien is a "Lime" iMac with 64 MB of RAM which runs OpenBSD 3.6. Naturally, I replaced the original hockey-puck mouse with a multiple-button mouse. The family computer, which I have named "gorgoroth", is an HP Pavilion with 512 MB of RAM which runs Windows XP Home Edition. It's the one everyone uses to access the Internet. (We only have dial-up service, although we could get fiber-optic service if we were willing to pay for it.) All three are networked together (and I'm the one who networked them). Anyway, while I was messing around I made new header images for my weblog with black backgrounds, since the ones with transparent backgrounds were showing up as white in Internet Explorer.

Si Mei was on the computer until curfew, or perhaps a little after curfew (midnight). I was feeling a bit put out about that, so I decided to go online after curfew. Among other things, I posted a comment to Stacey's weblog and went to Faithful 4ever. I found the jingle Ria had uploaded, and I decided to download it. Just as the file finished downloading, my Mom came into the room. It was about 2:30—two-and-a-half hours after curfew. Oops. I quickly shut the computer down and prepared myself for bed. I expected some kind of lecture or something, but she didn't say anything about it. I decided to wait till the next day to listen to the song.

Wednesday morning I helped clean out the garage and I mowed the front and back lawns. During free time I opted to take a nap. While dinner was cooking, Wu Mei called, and Mom left a steak on the stove, which was set to high, to talk to her. So I watched the steak. It got pretty dark underneath, so I decided to turn down the heat, pour more soy sauce into the pan, and keep moving the steak around. I've formed the opinion that whoever is cooking a meal should not answer the phone.

In the nighttime, while Si Mei was on the computer, I decided to take advantage of the time to watch the episodes of Mars that I had taped. About a month earlier I programmed the VCR at my grandparents' house to record from 7:00 to 8:00 in the evening on Saturdays on KTSF, and I left a tape in the VCR. I watched one taped episode at my grandparents' house the following week, then rewound the tape to the beginning and left it in the VCR. It wasn't until Fathers' Day that I retrieved the tape and brought it with me to Sacramento, but I hadn't found the time to watch it until Wednesday night. The tape holds slightly more than two hours, so I have been able to watch three consecutive episodes of Mars (including the one I taped previously), plus the beginning of a fourth. The first episode I saw was about Ling getting in trouble, Qing Mei letting Qi Luo have Ling, and Cang Ze submitting Qi Luo's work as his own. It ended up with Ling getting beat up by A Bin. In the next two episodes, Qi Luo discovers a lot about Ling's past. The fourth episode (of those that I taped) begins in the midst of a motorcycle race in Japan. Ling's bike gets pushed over to the side wall by racer #11, and he's injured. Just as it's apparent he has decided to return to the race, and he nods to his coach...the tape ran out. Oh well, maybe I'll read the English translations online.

Just some thoughts: the actress who plays Qing Mei reminds me a lot of Xu Weilun, who plays Jing Jing in Love Storm. I checked the credits, though, and it's not her. I like Qi Luo. Barbie Xu does such a good job that it's odd to think she's slightly older than me, and quite older than Vic. Vic Zhou is as good playing Ling as he was playing Lei. But, although I can sympathize with Ling in some ways, I still don't like him as much as Lei. Ling's cool in ways that everyone notices, but I think Lei's cool in ways that almost nobody else notices, and that makes him much cooler for me. Does that make sense? Oh well. :-P From what I've seen of Mars, I still like Meteor Garden I/II better. And My Love Patzzi. :-D

Speaking of My Love Patzzi, Stacey just made an entry on that show. ^____^ Now you see why I like Song Er so much? I watched most of the series (It's only 13 episodes.), but I missed the last episode (or maybe two) because I was supposed to go to Sacramento to see my family, and I didn't want to look silly by saying, "No, I want to stay here at my grandparents' because I'm really into this Korean drama with this really cute girl in it, and I have to keep watching it until it's over." *sigh* I'm very much afraid of looking silly, so that's why I'm going to switch to Chinese for the next paragraph. :-P

楊松兒, 我很喜歡妳. 妳不知道了嗎? *sigh*

I typed up much of this on Wednesday night—Thursday morning, rather—but I got so tired I decided to postpone it for another day. Blogdrive lets you save drafts too. Today (or Thursday, really) we finally got the news we've been waiting for for months. Dad works for an agency of the federal government, and its operations are being mostly shut down here and moved to Texas. Dad decided to keep his present employment and move to Texas. We just found out that the date he'll have to move by is Sept. 6—in a little over two months from now. I don't really feel like moving to Texas, though, so I'm looking for employment locally. But, either way, I shouldn't be very far from the Internet. :-D

Thursday evening Mom and Si Mei ate dinner with Mom's friend and her daughter, as the menfolk were at Scout Camp. I went to volleyball alone, but I brought an ice chest full of Otter Pops with me. They were originally for the dance last Friday, but they didn't get frozen enough in time. They were a big hit, and it looks like there's plenty for at least one more volleyball night. I would have been the only non-Hmong person playing volleyball if a group of young single adults hadn't shown up from Vacaville, which must be at least an hour's drive away. They were good players, and they had two guys who were quite taller than me. I wanted to play against them, but somehow I ended up on their team. Fortunately, the teams were not as unevenly matched as I had feared, and we had a lot of fun.

I realize this is already quite long, but I forgot to address comments in my last entry, so I'll do that here:

Niki - I looked up taisetsu na tomodachi online. What can I say to that? I realize now that losing the OIAL forums was sort of like losing my home. I'm glad I didn't lose my family permanently as well. ^____^

Stacey - It means something like "precious friend" or "valued friend". You know, like you. ;-)

Ria - Thanks for the, um, entry. :-P The card is quite new. The stamp does have an antique look to it, but if you were referring to the paper, I think it's just the shadows and lighting that make it look sort of yellowed.

Stacey - I'm glad you like "Dreams Never End"—the instrumental, anyway. Most New Order songs are instrumentals with lyrics. I'm not sure if that makes sense. ;-)

Fang64 - Welcome to my weblog, and thanks for the help. I don't have much data storage on this site—really only enough for a few image files. Thanks for telling me about the actionscript file. I hadn't paid much attention to it before. Unfortunately, changing the defaults doesn't seem to make any difference on IE. I've never used iframes before, but at this point I'm starting to think it's my best option. Either that, or go with the other mp3 player. Sorry for the long delay in my response. And, if you're still around, do you mind telling me how you found this weblog? I mean, did you google "XSPF" and "Hmong", or something? :-P

Ria - You like "Dreams Never End", then? After our previous conversation about New Order, I didn't anticipate that. I was afraid there wouldn't be any New Order song you would like. And I never really thought of "Dreams Never End" as a dance song. But I'm glad you like it. So, between "Dreams Never End" and "Bizarre Love Triangle", which do you like best?

Niki - I'm glad you associate me with BLT, although there are New Order songs I like better. I think of you when I listen to "The Killing Moon". And Lei, Shan Cai, and Dao Ming Si. ;-)

As I was thinking about what to write in my weblog this week, I remembered the dance I mentioned above where they played "Bizarre Love Triangle". (I think it's been played at a total of three dances I've attended.) For that reason, and also because Niki brought it up in her first entry, I decided to upload it earlier this week. I debated between whether to use the Brotherhood album verson or the version that's on the Substance album. The latter is the one they normally play at dances, and it has a stronger beat. I eventually chose the version from the Brotherhood album, partly because it's shorter—and thus has a smaller file size—and partly because it has a bass line, while the Substance version is missing the bass line.

I really need to finish that e-mail to Stacey. *sigh*

—Matt 慕容修

Not a very informative or illuminating title, I know. I couldn't really think of (or find) a good title for this entry, though. I figured I might as well have at least one journal-like entry on my weblog, so this is it. (Well, there may be more.)

I suppose I'd better introduce my family. Apart from my Dad and Mom, this is us:

1. Da Ge; (大哥)
2. Guess who? ;-) (慕容修)
3. San Di (三弟)
4. Si Mei (四妹)
5. Wu Mei (五妹)

I think I did that right. For those who are unfamiliar with Chinese kinship terms (or less familiar than I am, that is), the first and third siblings are my brothers, and the fourth and fifth are my sisters. (Stacey and Thea, I'm only counting my biological sisters here. :-P) Da Ge is married and lives in the Bay Area. He has one daughter. San Di is married and lives in Davis, about a 25-minute drive from Sacramento. Si Mei lives here with my parents (as do I). Wu Mei attends Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. I don't ordinarily refer to my siblings this way, but I figured I might as well retain at least some of the Chinese I've learned. Also, I'm not sure how I feel about giving their actual names. I kind of like it this way. :-)

Sunday was Father's Day, and all of us adult males (including me) got a jar of strawberry jam made by the young women in our church. I guess they don't want anyone to feel left out just because they're not married. I won't complain (about getting strawberry jam, that is).

In the afternoon we went to my grandparents' house in the Bay Area. They're on my father's side. My maternal grandparents both died when I was quite young. Anyway, apart from being Father's Day, it was also a family birthday celebration for my cousin, who I will call "Biao Di" (表弟). We were celebrating his fourth birthday, which was really on the 13th. My family gave him a junior bake set because he says he wants to be a cook. He also gave us party favors, among which were styrofoam planes that consisted of a flat fuselage with slots for the wing and tailplane. I got a Thunderbolt F-47D in U.S. markings. Biao Di got a Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk for himself. The illustration on the package had the markings of the Republic of China, which was a U.S. ally in World War II, but the actual plane had Japanese markings. At first I thought it was just a mistake, but the packaging said they were made in China, and then I began to wonder if it wasn't a mistake.... Biao Di got a new book from his (and my) aunt, titled If You Give a Pig a Pancake, and he wanted me to read it to him—three times consecutively. So I obliged.

Mondays through Wednesdays are chore days for me, starting from last week. I get about 1.5 hours of free time in the early afternoon while my Mom's taking a nap, and maybe a few hours at night, but I have to be off the computer by midnight. Thursdays through Saturdays I have a flexible schedule.

I spent most of Monday morning finding places to put the books I'd brought back from my grandparents' house. I used to live there, and I still have some books and papers there. My mom was also going through a bunch of old papers and stuff, so I helped with that.

In the evening we had a "family home evening" for the young single adults in our Stake (an ecclesiastical division consisting of several congregations—seven, in our case). In areas with lots of college students, I think it makes sense for the singles to have family home evening with each other, because most of them are away from their family and, therefore, are unable to spend that time with them. In our Stake, most of the young singles live with their families, so I'm not sure what the purpose of having a singles family home evening is (well, apart from getting us all married off, theoretically).

Anyway, I told Si Mei I would give the lesson. I eventually settled on "gratitude" as the subject of my lesson, and looked for whatever scriptures and quotes I could find on the subject. Si Mei prepared the activity. Apart from the two of us, only one other person showed up—a Tongan girl who's about Si Mei's age. I was afraid I didn't have enough material, but I ended up taking up most of the time with my lesson. That's how it usually goes when I have to give a lesson, talk, or oral report: I usually have too much reference material, but not enough of my own original thought. I don't know why writing is easier for me.

Si Mei's activity was making thank you cards. She had a couple of stamps that we spread embossing ink (which is like a clear glue) on. We stamped the cards with the ink, then poured embossing powder on the cards. After shaking off the excess powder, we held a heat gun (looks like a blow-dryer) under the card until the embossing powder melted. I was kind of embarrassed because, after giving a lesson on gratitude, I wasn't sure what to do with the thank you card I'd made. Actually, I knew who I really wanted to give it to, but how to send it....

I eventually figured out what to do. ;-)

After returning home, I laid on my bed while Si Mei was on the computer. I fell asleep and didn't wake up till after midnight. I sort of forgot about the curfew, so I went online and didn't get back to bed till quite late.

On Tuesday I had an eye exam. It seems my last eye exam was about seven years ago. Not surprisingly, I'll need new lenses, though I'd like to keep the frames I have. In the afternoon I helped make apricot jam and strawberry jam. I also helped Si Mei make sweet & sour pork. I really ought to learn to make some Chinese dishes. For main dishes, I have two specialties: spaghetti and tamale pie. For desserts, one: shortbread. I'd like to learn how to make lemon chicken and onion pancakes for starters. I have no idea how easy/difficult it is, though. In the nighttime, Mom told Si Mei to let me go online at about 10:00. I was resting in my bed again, and by the time Si Mei was finished with the computer, I was asleep. I guess I needed the sleep more than I needed to go online.

Wednesday morning I mowed the lawn and pulled weeds. In the afternoon I looked for jobs having to do with network administration, web design, even programming. I'm probably not qualified for most of them, but I guess I won't know that for sure until I apply.

Mom decided to let me have free time in the afternoon. I messed around with my weblog, mostly with streaming mp3 players. I put the XSPF Web Music Player in the sidebar. I was quite satisfied once I'd got it to work—then Stacey said it didn't work for her. I didn't realize how much difference there still is between web browsers until I looked at my weblog in Internet Explorer, which I rarely use. I've used Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, and various Gecko-based browsers since time immemorial. I'm designing this weblog for Firefox, but I also want it to look nice for everyone who's stuck using IE. :-P I'm still not sure what causes the problem, but I think for some reason IE is not seeing my playlist, which causes the player to either look up a default playlist or to return an "Undefined" error message. So I searched for another player and eventually found the Flash MP3 Player. It was late by the time I'd found it, though, so I didn't try to get it working right before I went to bed. Also before I went to bed, I finally made a (long) post on Faithful 4ever that I'd been meaning to make, but didn't really have the time earlier in the week.

Today (Thursday, rather—it's past midnight on Friday morning.) I got the Flash MP3 Player working correctly. Apparently it's skinnable, but with the default look it's slightly too large for the sidebar. I decided to place it at the bottom of the page for now. Maybe, if I can find/make a skin for it that's less wide, I can stick it in the sidebar. At any rate, I want to get rid of one of these music players eventually. If I can get the XSPF Web Music Player to work with IE first, that's the one I'll keep. If I can get the Flash MP3 Player thin enough to stick in the sidebar first, then I guess I'll keep it instead.

I used New Order's "Dreams Never End" to test the music players. It's one of the earliest New Order songs, from their first album. For Ria: this is a New Order song that I really like—not my favorite, but certainly among them. It's unusual in that Peter Hook (the bass player) sings the vocals. Bernard Sumner sings the vocals on almost all of the New Order songs. He also plays the guitar. Thursday I added "Insight", the Joy Division song I mentioned in my first entry. I like the song okay, but it's not my favorite—that will come later.

Tonight—Thursday night—Si Mei and I went to the church to play volleyball with the young single adults. There were quite a few people there tonight. As is always the case, over half of them were Hmong (苗人). Not all of them were adults, but nobody's complaining. The more, the merrier. Actually, there were a lot more non-Hmong folks who showed up than usual. It's not unusual that Si Mei and I are the only white folks at volleyball. Not that I would complain about that. ;-)

Tomorrow night there's a dance and Si Mei is mostly in charge of the setting up. That means I'll be helping her. The theme is "decades", so they have to play some 80's music, don't they? There's no guarantee they'll play New Order, though. I hope to get another entry (or two) off before the end of this week, but right now it's about time for me to sign off.

—Matt 慕容修

"In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face."

—J. C. R. Licklider, "The Computer as a Communication Device"

I first heard of the Internet in about 1993—a quarter-century after "The Computer as a Communication Device" was published. At the time, I was fascinated by the potential of the worldwide network. I saw it as a vast electronic library that could contain copies of every book ever published. When I first was able to use the Internet in 1995, I found that it was no substitute for the local public library. Still, there was plenty of interesting (if not actually very useful) content, and I was thrilled by the idea that the pages I was viewing on my monitor were stored on a computer somewhere perhaps halfway across the world, and I had instantaneous access to them from my home.

Now, almost a decade later, the Internet has steadily grown more useful in the way I used to imagine it, but I never imagined how much I would use it to actually communicate with other people, rather than just search it for information I found interesting. Recently I've been pondering just how much the Internet has collapsed the world. Some of my closest friends live thousands of miles away from me, in countries I've never been to. I don't even know what some of them look like. It doesn't really matter, though, because we've been brought together because we have similar interests, because we've found things we have in common, or just because we like talking to each other. And we can always communicate with each other almost instantaneously, without having to travel long distances and show our passports at customs, thanks to the combination of physical infrastructure and open software protocols that we call the "Internet".

I first began posting on web forums six or seven years ago. Usually I only posted sporadically, either when I found some information I thought the other members would find interesting, or when I thought of something to say that I thought the others might find amusing. When I joined the Once In A Lifetime forums in 2003, I didn't think that my role would be much different. I never expected to become as integral to the forum as I became. Since that forum shut down at the beginning of this year, I've been wondering how to replace it, or how to get it back. Beginning in April, I was blessed to find my way back to many of the forum members I had been cut off from for three long months. Some of them had weblogs. All of them (those who I've been reunited with) have joined another forum, although one much larger than the OIAL forums. I joined that forum too, but I'm still (after nearly a month) finding my way around in it. I guess I figured what I really want is a forum where everything I say is on-topic, even if it has nothing to do with F4. Not that I'm leaving Faithful 4ever, or anything. My hope is that what I post here and what I post there will create a positive feedback cycle. After all, I've found over the years that some people have a difficult time getting to know me. ;-)

So, anyway, I signed up for this account. I chose blogdrive partly because some of my friends have blogdrive accounts, and partly because I like the layout. I thought I'd be able to get my weblog to look the way I wanted it to, and I've been mostly successful so far. I started with the "Polar" theme, but soon had the source thoroughly hacked up to produce what you see here. I'll probably still be tweaking the layout some in the next week or two.

Some things probably bear a little explanation. The word swefniend is Old English for "dreamer". The title of this weblog, "Dreams Never End", is also the title of a New Order song, from their first album, Movement (1981). It also conflicts logically with the opening lyric from the Joy Division song "Insight": "I guess the dreams always end." I'll probably examine the relationship between Joy Division and New Order at a later date. I don't know exactly why I chose that title for my weblog, but it seems that the topic of dreams has kept surfacing in my online conversations. It's not like I often remember my dreams (of the sleeping sort). When I'm honest with myself, though, I have to admit that I'm often a dreamer of the waking sort. Anyway, the color scheme of this weblog is based on the cover art for the Movement album. The color coding on the image at the top of the page is borrowed from the color coding used in the artwork for New Order's Power, Corruption & Lies album and the singles "Blue Monday" and "Confusion", all from 1983.

As for what this weblog is going to be, I don't intend for it to be just an online journal—although I may write a little about what's going on in my life. I don't intend for it to be all about New Order—although I'll most likely bring them up from time to time. I certainly don't intend to make this an online photo album—although I may post some pictures I find interesting if I feel like it. And, although I like writing long, detailed explanations of whatever subjects I happen to be thinking about, I'm sure that won't be the only thing I use this weblog for. ;-)

This entry was much longer than I initially expected. I hope they aren't all this long. (And rest assured, I have some long entries planned for...when I get around to them.)

—Matt 慕容修