Diary

My Life at April 2005

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May 31, 2005(Tuesday)

Since I went to bed late last night, I did not go to work this morning. Instead, I checked email and surf the internet at the new home. I brought with me the wireless router that Ricky Lam gave the church a year ago to Paco's house. In fact, I have been using this router since Carmen moved to Venezuela. Now Pastor Ricky Chan bought another wireless router for the church. So I don't know what to do with this router. Kin Hey will return from school at noon. Therefore, I need to finish using computer and playing violin before he returns. Or else, he will mess up with my stuff.
Since I will return the house to the landlord at night, I asked someone to do a clean up to the old house. That Venezuelan woman ("ghost grand-auntie" in Chinese) did a marvelous and thorough job. All the black stuff in the bath tub and the kitchen is cleaned. I am only required to pay Bs20000 (about Cdn$10) but I ended up giving her Bs40000 (Cdn$20). I rarely give additional money, unless the work is truly good!
I went to work in the afternoon, but not doing anything related to work. I am supposed to practice and prepare next week's CCIE week#3 in Miami. However, I have not received any information from the employer. Therefore I am not doing anything constructive lately.
I went to Baptist Church for dinner. Today is Yanting's birthday, so even though I need to go to MB church later on, I went to Baptist Church for dinner, just to celebrate her dinner and cut cake with her. And then I went to MB Church to host the Bible Quiz night. I have been hosting quiz night for fellowship for many (more than 12) times. I can't remember when the last time that I participate in Bible quiz though was. Anyway, most of the people in the MB Church's fellowship are either new Christian (come to church for about half a year) or non-believer. Therefore, I made the Bible questions as easy as I can. I also made lots of non-Christian questions and made them move as much as I can, so that I can keep the atmosphere as lively as possible.
Basically, this is how I host the Quiz. There are two parts: "must answer" questions and "competition questions". For "must answer" questions, each group has to answer 13 questions each time. There is nothing interesting here. However, for competition question, I use the jeopardy style with several categories. We played the game twice, and each time has five categories. Part 1: Gospel of Mark, Old Testament, entertainment/sport, action, China. Part 2: Gospel of Mark, New Testament, MB Church, News and Venezuela. Rather than selecting a group leader to answer the questions, I numbered each member in the two groups from 1 to 5. Then after I yell (literally yell out) out the question, I yelled out a number from 1 to 5. Then whoever got called has to run to the front and take the plastic ball and answer the question. Other people must remain silence once someone takes control of the ball. In this case, everyone is involved. This question not only challenge the biblical knowledge, but also physical skill (e.g. racing for the ball, and one of the action questions asks that person to do 50 push up), common knowledge (e.g. questions related to the news), questions concerning about the church member and so on.
At night, I met with the landlord and returned the keys back to her. This is the first house after our marriage and fills with happy memories. We pray that our next house will continue be the household of faith and has better memories.

Carmen and I will go to Europe backpacking for a month. Here is the ticket info for Carmen:

*June 23/24 (Thur/Fri)*	BA84 YVR - LHR (London) 20:35 - 13:35 BA988 LHR - TXL (Berlin) 19:10 - 21:55
*July 17 (Sun)*	BA983 TXL - LHR 12:30 - 13:25 BA85 LHR - YVR 17:10 - 18:35

Here is the ticket info for Hubert:

*June 23/24 (Thur/Fri)*	AF461 CCS - CDG (Paris) 16:50 - 07:55 AF2034 CDG - TXL (Berlin) 13:15 - 15:00
*July 17 (Sun)*	AF1135 TXL - CDG 07:15 - 09:00 AF460 CDG - CCS 10:40 - 14:10

May 30, 2005(Monday)

Carmen arrived home at 5:30am Venezuela time (2:30 Vancouver time) this morning. The latest ever! Probably because the 8 hours wait in Houston, plus 1.5 extra hours delay because of poor weather!
I continue to pack up at home this morning. Actually, I am almost done. There is no last minute rush needed. Semson dropped by this noon and helped me to drive some of the stuff to Paco's house. I will live in a room besides the kitchen. My big worry is that where I should put my digital piano. Paco's 6 years old son Kin Hey is very active. He always likes to take a look and play around with things. Previously, when I was living in Dr. Chu's house, YiSon was only 1.5 years old. Therefore, if I close the door, then he cannot open it. However, it will be different this time. I am still thinking of a good solution.
Since I will move to Paco's house to live, I disconnected the internet from home. Therefore, from now on, if I want to check email, I need to go back to work. (Paco's house has internet, but it is difficult to concentrate on stuff when Kin Hey is around). I went back to work this afternoon.
I taught the guitar class one last time at this house at night. Then they helped me to move house. Semson, Fernando, Yanting, Vicky (Yanting's room mate) and Che So's nephew (whose car has a big trunk) also came to help out. The single bed that I slept since December 2002 and also the table that used to hold the digital piano will be returned to church. And the double bed will be moved to Che So building's security guard. I will pack my digital piano for good because the room that I am staying is too small and I don't want Kin Hey to mess around with my digital piano.
After moving, I returned to new house at 11:30. And then I organize stuff for an hour. Then I talked to Paco and Siu Ling about church and fellowship from 12:30 to almost 3am.

May 29, 2005(Sunday)

The day finally comes. Even though I went to bed at 2am last night, I woke up at 4am this morning because of some mosquito itchy feeling. We packed the stuff and then getting ready for Che So to pick us up at 5:40. Carmen left Venezuela today for good this morning. Her flight is at 9am so we went to the airport at 6:30am. Besides Che So and myself, Elaine and Yanting also went to the airport with us. We arrived to the airport at 6:30. The check-in line up for Continental today is very short. Therefore, Carmen finished check-in at 7. We went to eat breakfast in some restaurant in airport.
The separation time finally comes. At 8, we escorted Carmen to the entrance of the custom area. She hugged each of these people one by one. She got a bit emotionally already. And when she at last hugged me, she cried pretty bad. Elaine and Yanting were crying at that time too, because they don't know when will be the next time that they will see Carmen. I comfort Carmen that I will see her either in two weeks (in Denver) or in four weeks (in Europe). I also reminded her to remember all the lessons that she learned in Venezuela. We left the airport at 8:20 and drove back to church.
I was supposed to be the song leaders for both church and also the Sunday School teacher last Sunday. However, I needed to fly to Miami at that time. Therefore, I postponed everything to this week. The song lists are "Deben Alabar a Jehová" (from SoP), "is for my sin" (from ACM), "Sólo por Ti" (from "Uncle West"), "Amor Sublime" and "La Mejor Bendición" (from SoP). I have resigned from Baptist Church's singspiration team. In addition, it will also probably be my last time to attend MB Church's worship. Because I am too tired with only two hour sleep last night, I felt asleep quite badly during the sermon. After being a song leader for the last two years, it is a good time to stop and rest. I also taught Sunday school in Baptist Church today. This will also be my last Sunday School class in Baptist Church too. I am putting a halt to my Venezuela serving. I know that my date is numbered here.
I went to the quiet home at night. The empty feeling is not that great. However, I am glad that I am occupied to do lots of stuff. I spent about 2.5 hours updating the photos from last night's farewell program! I also spent some time to packing so that I can move to Paco's home tomorrow night. Carmen and I were separated physically after I start working in Venezuela. Therefore, we are quite familiar with this separation feeling. However, this is the first time that we separated physically after our marriage. (Actually, in November 2004, I have been to two 4 days business trip that I did not bring Carmen along). Let's see how the Chinese phases "short separation is better than newly wed". We are already newly wed. So what would the impact be?

May 28, 2005(Saturday)

We packed stuff until 3am last night. And we woke up at 9:30 and kept on packing and packing. There are a lot of different trips that we need to take care. First, we just returned from Miami yesterday. In addition, Carmen will go back to Canada tomorrow so we need to figure out what she should bring back to Vancouver. Then I will move to Paco's house to live this Monday night. Therefore, we need to clear the house completely. To make thing worst, I will go to Miami and Denver again next weekend. I also will go to Europe with Carmen in a month. And I will forever relocate to Indiana in August. Therefore, I need to make sure that I have everything that I need for each of the trip. This will be another very unstable time. The last time that it was so unstable was the period around my wedding. At that time, I have to prepare stuff for my wedding, honeymoon, Carmen's arrival to Venezuela, parents joined us for the Venezuelan wedding and also business trip to Atlanta and Boston. Seems like God wants to train me with this unstableness.
Carmen will go back to Vancouver tomorrow. In addition, I will be traveling back and forth in the next several months and then permanently leave Venezuela by August. Therefore, the two churches decided to have a farewell party for both of us. It was held at the Baptist Church tonight. We first had dinner with the Baptist church people. Each people bring a dish. Then the MB Church people joined us at 8pm for a farewell program. Since some of the people arrived late, the MC Paco and Yemmy asked us to lead the song. I will be the singspiration leader tomorrow and I would not have time to practice music. Therefore, I take this time to practice the song for tomorrow. This also gives us a chance to lead song together one last time.
The two fellowships also had some songs performed to us. Guitar class from MB church played and sang the song "Inside Jesus" and "Manos Maravillosas" (both from ACM). They did not have great guitar skill but that still makes me proud. The Baptist Church sang and danced the song "Beautiful Life" (from ACM). I have taught them this song and the dance two years ago. They also sang the "Ask me" song. Next is game. For the first game, the game host Ah Men and Ah Chung asked some IQ questions. Carmen is the group leader of the female group and I am the group leader for the male group. If the group has one wrong answer, then I will draw on Carmen's face or vice versa. Obviously I yelled out that I want to loss so that they will draw on my face instead. However, it turns out that they got wild and we drawn on each other's face a lot. Afterward, they played the game that we always like to play during wedding: they will ask a question and then they will compare the answers from Carmen and me. Semson, Ana and Elaine will draw on our face. Although we became 'flower face cats' we appreciated them 'playing' us because that means we have a good relationship with them. After the game, we had some sharing time, and we took the chance to thank our brother and sisters. Paco wrote new lyrics for the song "High Sing to Cloud", which is about friendship and witnessing to God. We sang together and people were very touched by the words. We then spent a lot of time taking pictures and cutting cake. The two churches gave each of us a t-shirt with a group picture printing (see picture of May 17, combined Chinese fellowship). People took turns to write on it. God really blessed us with the two churches and very caring brothers and sisters. It took us a long time to leave the church because there were lots of hugs and goodbyes.
We cleaned up houses again and slept at 2am

May 27, 2005(Friday)

Today concludes the business trip. I gave the students some times to continue working on the lab. I also called dad during the day to check how about his 60th birthday next year and insurance for Carmen when she returns to Vancouver this coming Sunday. Basically, the next time that I will return to Vancouver most likely is next summer, and I hope that Hansel can return as well so that we can celebrate parents' 60th birthday (my dad is 2006 Feb and my mom is 2007 Apr. So we will go mid-way).
The same three students for this class also gave me a perfect evaluation. I am grateful about this. I put a lot of brain cell into designing the challenging lab and the students enjoy the challenge.
Carmen went to the mall to continue shopping for our friends. We met at the hotel at 4:30 and then we both took another three hours flight back to Venezuela. We arrived home at 12:30 and then very busy about unpacking, organizing stuff. We need to bring lots of stuff to church because we bought some thing on behaves of the friends here. In addition, we need to return something to the church.
I will be going to Miami again for CCIE training week #3, and then I will go to Denver for IPCE bootcamp #10.

*June 05 (Sun)*	AA936 CCS - MIA 15:26 - 18:50
*June 11 (Sat)*	AA908 MIA - DFW 08:11 - 10:10 AA2213 DFW - Denver 10:48 - 11:42
*June 19 (Sun)*	AA1324 Denver - DFW 10:17 - 13:12 AA2155 DFW - CCS 14:45 - 21:03

May 26, 2005(Thursday)

For the first three days of the course, the students were working on the lab according to the BSCI (Building Scalable Cisco Internetwork) course. Each lab focuses on individual technology. Today and tomorrow, the students will work on the "monster" lab that I created last week. That was the most challenging lab that I have ever written, focusing on OSPF, RIP, redistribution, NAT, access-list. Last time I created a lab on BGP; I expected the students to complete it in 8 hours but it turned out that they finished it in 6 hours. Therefore, I decided to make it as difficult as I can so that they will be "entertained". They worked hard today and made good progress. However, they are not able to finish it yet. It is so satisfying seeing my students got stuck and fall into my trick. Of course, I explained to them about the trick afterward. This is more difficult than the CCIE exam. They like my exercise.
After doing some exercise, Carmen and I went to Denny for dinner. This may be our last business trip dinner. Carmen will return to Vancouver coming Sunday. She may not be able to join any further business trip.

May 25, 2005(Wednesday)

I hosted the online session for the Denver CVoice group that I will teach in a month. This will be my IPCE bootcamp #10. I went to hotel for short afternoon nap during lunch time, and I also went to the post office to mail the four boxes of parcels to Indiana. I let the students work on the lab as usual. It is relaxing.
Other than that, this is a normal night. Hedison (son of Che So) drove to Miami from Orlando (about 3 hours drive) to deliver the computer that he ordered online for Wilson (son of Mrs. Cheng). Therefore, he arrived here at 1:30am. And then, since he has to work the day after, he left immediately. I guess that he returned at about 4:00am.

May 24, 2005(Tuesday)

The students have some work to do last night, so I started the class at 10:30 today. My company CTT called me at around 9:30 to check how come I am not here. I told them the reason. I also talked to my company about the possibility of online CCIE class. I told them that it saves traveling cost and it is very flexible. Actually, this is a move that hopefully will pave my path after I resign Desca. I hope that they will continue hiring me at that time.
I went to a Colombian restaurant with my students during lunch time. All Latino food is similar. At night, Carmen and I went to a Mediterranean Deli restaurant for sandwiches dinner. Then I went to do exercise at night. Carmen went to the Miami Beach today. I am happy about this because I cannot go myself. So she being able to go is a blessing for me.
Today is also the finale of different reality show, such as The Apprentice, American Idol and The Contender.

May 23, 2005(Monday)

Today is the first day of the CCIE session #2. This week I will focus on RIP, OSPF, EIGRP, redistribution, NAT, access-list. (This technical info is for my own reference). This class will have the same three students that I had two weeks ago. Since they know me and they gave me a perfect instructor score, I am quite confident with this week. I let them work on the lab exercise most part of today while clarifying some difficult concepts. I went back to the hotel for 40 mins afternoon nap during lunch time! My three students (all employee of company "telefonica") need to perform a network cut-over tonight from 1am to 3am (network engineers always make change after business hour so that few people are affected). Hence they wanted to get off at 5pm and start the class late (10:30am) tomorrow. Of course, I am very pleased with this idea.
Since this is very sunny and still early after class (5:15 pm), I went for a jog outside. I am very familiar with the neighborhood area already. We had Japanese food at night. In addition, we packed boxes of personal item that we carried using luggage (it is recommended to mail using boxes) to Indiana.

May 22, 2005(Sunday)

We woke up at 4:10 and left home at 5:15. We took a 3 hours flight to Miami. I had problem with my luggage again. Since I am moving to US, I brought several boxes of personal items with me each time when I go to US. Today, our luggage passed through the counter without problem. However, as we are about to board the plane, the flight attendant told us that they need to examine the luggage. Therefore, I asked Carmen to board the flight while I go to the storage room near the flight. The box that they are interested is the box full of books and my flute. They did not open the flute box at all. They know that I do not know Spanish and I am a Canadian. Then they just take a look and let me go. However, the time is very tight. The last time that I had problem like this is Aug 11, 2002. I went to Vancouver at that time, and my luggage contains a box of instant noodle.
I slept through the flight to Miami. Then we went to Dolphin Mall again in the afternoon. Carmen has been here every day during the last trip. We saw the movie "Star War III" It was a pretty good movie. We had problem with the shuttle bus when we return as usual. We have to wait for about an hour but the Shuttle bus still did not show up. Therefore, we took taxi home. I also ran and worked out in the gym. This is now my exercise standard because I go to travel so often.

May 21, 2005(Saturday)

We ran at Parque del Este this morning for her to pay the final respect. Originally we planned to run for three laps (each worth about 20 mins). But we are too tired after one lap so we decided to go for two (we always go for two laps).
In the afternoon, we went with Baptist Church to an orphanage. This place used to be a large jail. Now they converted this to an orphanage that contains about 400 people, 150 of those are children. The living condition is pretty bad. One big dorm has about 150 beds. Yanting told me that several universities' Christian fellowship do some programs in the orphanage periodically. Therefore, we gathered a lot of little gift for the kids and join the programs. Lots of kids from Baptist Church also go, so that they can experience what poor kids are like. My experience of going there is like STM coming from Canada to Venezuela. We are "experiencing" and "sightseeing" where poor kids are living. This makes me admire Jesus's humbleness even more.
Afterward, we went to Elaine and Qiao's house to take a break. Then we went to play bowling. This is my second or third time playing. The last time was about 1997 with Canaan fellowship. I score 81 the first game and 103 in the second game. I am quite satisfied with my performance. Then all of us went to Ho Kow for dinner.

May 20, 2005(Friday)

I worked at home to finish the CCIE course that I will teach next week. I hope that it will be smooth and receive good evaluation. At night, Carmen and I went out to have after-dinner snack. This will likely be the last time that we walk to find ice-cream after dinner. It is not likely that there will have walking distance food available in Indiana, unless I am living in the dorm. We watched two HK movies that Carmen downloaded from the internet. We will reformat the computer soon so we should watch the movie or else we will download waste the effort. The movies are "Mong Kok Dark Night" and "lucky one dragon" (the second one is by Stephen Chow).

May 19, 2005(Thursday)

I stayed at home today again to work on the CCIE course that I will teach next week. I find that I can concentrate much better at home, compare to at work. When I am at work, I always like to check the yahoo news or browse the internet. However, at home, I am much more focused (and that's why I don't know the news as much as I used to be).
At night, we went to Semson's house for dinner. Dr. Chu will go to China for two months this Saturday. He is the leader in the MB Church fellowship. Therefore, they went out for a dinner and to discuss what to do after he leaves the church. The situation is more or less the same as the Baptist Church, because I will be leaving soon.
Here is the iternary for my Miami visit: (I hide the airplane number for safety sake)

*May 22 (Sun)*	AAXXX CCS - MIA 07:52 - 11:06
*May 27 (Fri)*	AAXXXX MIA - CCS 19:26 - 22:38

May 18, 2005(Wednesday)

Today is my three year anniversary in Venezuela! Even though I am only in Venezuela for three years, I have a lot of thing! Therefore, I spent the whole morning packing stuff so that I can bring something to ship to Miami this Sunday. Lots of memories! I had something that I brought from Vancouver three years ago. Therefore, the memories not only include the time I am in Venezuela but also the time before I come to Venezuela!
I went to work in the afternoon, to do some administration thing, such as picking up my pay cheque, printing something and so on. Then, in order to celebrate my three year anniversary and help Carmen to farewell Venezuela, we went to Lee Hamilton Steakhouse for dinner. This is a special place for us because this restaurant is right by the company apartment that we live the first two weeks in Venezuela. We also went to this restaurant to eat May 31, 2002, the day before Carmen return to Vancouver during her first visit.

May 17, 2005(Tuesday)

I worked at home, killing lots of brain cell, and working on the CCIE course for next week. I spent about 6.5 hours working on this. I am much more productive at home. I even did not have afternoon nap today! During lunch time, Carmen and I went to Parque del Este for running. Carmen was very fit and ran at a good speed.
At night, we went to MB church for combine fellowship between two churches. This is game night. We had quite a lot of fun.

May 16, 2005(Monday)

Rather than working at work, I worked at home today. I designed exhaustedly about the CCIE second course that I will teach next week. I used to know a lot about the routing info that I will teach. However, after some time, I am getting really rusty. Therefore, I need to pick up the knowledge from scratch again.

May 15, 2005(Sunday)

May 14, 2005(Saturday)

I taught Sunday School today. I always have a hard time to concentrate and prepare for the Bible Study. Since I am also good at teaching and convincing others, I did not put a lot of heart into the preparation stage. I figure that, I would only use 10 to 20% of what I prepare anyway, and I would make up along the way. This may be due to the "moving" of the Holy Spirit at that time. However, I feel that I did a really bad job lately because I depend too much on the improvsation. Next time, I must respect more and work harder to prepare for the Sunday school
I went with the Chinese youth and other people to Simon Bolivar University in the afternoon again to play tennis. However, after only playing for about 1.5 hours, it rained really badly. The mountain side road's drainage is like flooding! Therefore, we are forced to leave. I felt really bad about this.
We went to Mrs. Cheng's house to settle down and ate dinner. I returned home at 9pm.

May 13, 2005(Friday)

Today is the third day and also the last day of the training class. I gave them a challenge lab that I developed last week. They completed it faster than I think. The class ended at about 3:30. Finally, I have a class with perfect evaluation. Even though there are only three students, it is still good to have a perfect evaluation. My supervisor joked that whether I did fill this out myself. Afterward, I stayed at CTT to connect the cables for the next course that I will teach in two weeks until 5:30.
Carmen and I left the hotel at 6:30 and started our overnight challenge. We took a bus and metro to Miami downtown. Then we spent almost 2 hours walking from downtown to Miami South Beach, following the road that I used May 22, 2004. We are glad that even though the sky attempted to rain, it actually did not.
We had a great and expensive dinner ($77) at the Ocean Avenue (just right by the beach). Then we wandered around from 11:30 to 1:30 am. Originally, we thought of sleeping on the street or on the beach. However, we cannot find a suitable place that we both like. Therefore, we were looking for some 24 hours store to spend our night. We went to some deli to eat from 1:30 to 3, but actually I was sleeping most of the time.
The deli getting more crowded at about 3 (this is the only restaurant that opens 24 hours and people started to come out after they went to dancing club). Therefore, we went to another place. We walked by a very beautiful hotel called Lowe which is nearby the beach. We decided to check the lobby. To our surprise, this is a large place and there is no one that is actively checking the lobby. Therefore, we pretended to be a hotel guest and pretended to fall asleep after talking. We also went to the swimming pool in the hotel (even though we don't have the access card) and took picture and slept at the very comfortable chairs besides the swimming pool. We left at about 5am.
After we did some shopping and read some magazine, we went to the South beach again at 5:40 to see our first sun rise. I don't think that we have ever done that before in our life. After some walking, we sat on the beach from 6 to 6:30 to witness the rise of the sun (actually, I was sleeping most of the time, and just peeked once in a while to see whether the sun is there yet). This is a cloudy day so we cannot fully see the sun coming out. However, we can still see the sky turned from dark to bright.
We left at 6:40 and returned to the hotel at 8:20. We are both proud about completing this "Survivor" style challenge. This kind of harsh environment will continue when we go to Europe backpacking next month.

May 12, 2005(Thursday)

The second day of the class is smooth. I only spent about 30 mins on lecture. I let them work on the lab for the rest of the day.

May 11, 2005(Wednesday)

I taught the first day of the BGP class this morning. This is the first session of the CCIE practice. Therefore, I make this class to be as lab intensive as possible. I may have to come back to Miami again in two weeks to teach the second session. At night, we went out for a Japanese dinner. Since this is a business trip, we can enjoy the luxury food (Japanese dinner) without any guilty feeling. I also did some exercise at the hotel exercise room after dinner. I feel great doing exercise after eating Japanese food.

May 10, 2005(Tuesday)

We woke up at 4:20 and left home at 5:20. Since we will move to US to study later, we packed some boxes so that we can ship from Miami to Indiana. Therefore, instead of being light passengers, we utilize all four carry-on spaces that we can have. It is a hard time to move from my home to the taxi and then from the taxi to the check-in counter. We had to pay for some local people to help us move the stuff. After 3 hours flight to Miami, we walked around the airport to find a Post Office. Then we mailed two of the boxes to Indiana. The parcel mailing price of each box is about $22 and it is reasonable. If I mail it from out-of-country, especially from South America, it would probably be much more expensive. We still have one luggage that we need to disassemble to two boxes so that we will mail this one as well.
The only time that I can have a rental car during the training trip is Oct 2004 when I went to Boston. The rental cost was $800 for a week, probably because there is only medium/large size car available at that time. Ever since then, we need to ask for shuttle bus or order taxi. Today, I ask for Shuttle bus from Hampton Inn. They asked us to wait for 45 mins for the shuttle bus, but ended up we have to wait for 75 mins. I am about to order taxi when I finally see the shuttle bus arrive. The driver said that he drove around the waiting area 5 times but no one stops him. However, I just cannot see the shuttle bus at all!
Carmen is still sick so she slept for an hour while I went out for a jog. Then we took the shuttle bus to the Dolphin Mall, which is one of the biggest malls around. We were there from 6 to 9.
We had problem with the Shuttle Bus. We ordered the shuttle bus to leave the hotel at 5:30. However, when we were at the lobby at 5:30, the receptionist told us that the shuttle bus may not come if there is some one from the airport asking for shuttle bus, because the airport passenger always takes priority. I am pissed off because they promised to have the shuttle bus before. I am glad that the bus arrived at 5:40.
We want to return to the hotel at 8:30. We ordered the Shuttle bus at 7:45 and the receptionist told us that the bus can come at 8:30. When we were waiting from 8:30 to 8:45 and the bus is not yet here, I called the receptionist again. He told me that the driver has to pick someone up from the airport. And the driver would be here at 9. I am pissed off again because they are breaking their promise. And then we were waiting until 9:20 and the Shuttle Bus is not yet here. We have enough and took the freaking taxi back home. Damn CTT because they don't let me rent a car. And even more, damn the Hampton Inn transportation service. By the time I return from the taxi drive, I am very mad at the receptionist but I did not explode. The writing of the Hampton Inn guarantee that they don't expect us to pay if we are not 100% satisfies with their service. I almost point this out when I am demanding from the receptionist. My mood of today is totally ruined thanks to the Shuttle Bus service. Actually, when I was here last time in November 23, 2004, it takes 45 mins for the taxi to arrive to the hotel. The transportation related to Hampton Inn always sucks. Let's see what will happen for the rest of the week.

May 09, 2005(Monday)

I worked at home this morning again with the BGP lab. Carmen is still a bit sick but she is getting a lot better. Hansel's Angel town webpage was deleted without any notification last Saturday. That really breaks my heart because I understand how much effort he put into the webpage. I would be very mad if that happens to me. Therefore, I saved my all of my online diary (since May 2002) today. There are over 2000 photos in my homepage and I don't know how to save it without clicking to each page individually. I am glad that I have most of the photo in my laptop. The only thing that I lost is the innovative caption for each photo.
At night, Ah Men, Yemmy and Kitty ate dinner at our house. Yemmy and Kitty shared with Carmen at night, while I taught the guitar class.

May 08, 2005(Sunday)

Carmen was a bit sick and has soar throat today. I led singspiration with the song lists are: "I love prayer", "Un Pacto al final del Arco Iris" ("promise under rainbow" from SoP), "Jesús te Ama" ("Jesus loves you" from SoP), "En las Nubes Oirás" (High sing to cloud), "Jehová Tú eres mi Dios" ("Jehovah you are my God" from SoP). In additional, because today is Mother's day, the Chinese youth fellowship played a drama. I acted as the wife and Carmen is my father-in-law. Originally Ah Men was the one who is supposed to play the wife, but he quitted because he doesn't want to put on the make up. So I became the second choice. The costume design team (Elaine, Yemmy) made me a wig, and they made me put on a dress, lip stick and blush. I was so hesitate to look at myself in the mirror. But I did. I looked like a person who just escaped from the mental institute. After Sunday service, we had a big lunch at church, and then went home for nap. Carmen was not feeling well so she took some medicine and slept. Later in the evening, Ah Qiao picked us up for dinner at Che So's. All of the youth fellowship members were there, so we talked about the future of fellowship after I have left.

May 07, 2005(Saturday)

We went with the Baptist Church Chinese youth to Universidad Simeon Bolivar (the top university in Venezuela) this afternoon to play tennis. Yanting is studying in this university so we can ask her to book a court for us. We played from 4 to 6:30. I am very energetic (i.e. hyperactive) and I ran all over the place. It seems like that I have energy that never get exhausted. My running exercise surely paid off. Carmen also ran for 14 track (about 8km) at that time and people were amazed at her endurance too.
At night, we went to Pastor Ricky Chan's house for dinner. This is the first time that we went to his house for dinner. Yemmy also told us that she will get married next week. We are very happy for her.
I called mom at night to say Happy Mother's Day. She told me that Hansel's website (hosted by Angel Towns) was deleted. I was very shocked and unhappy about this. Being a person who has maintain website for a long time, I understand the frustration and unhappiness because of this. I hope that yahoo would not close the free website service. Or else it would be very sucks.

May 06, 2005(Friday)

I find that I am much more productive at home than at work. I stayed home today to work on the BGP lab. Kitty came to our house for lunch. Carmen and I also went to Parque del Este for running. At night, there is the first church-wide prayer meeting. This is probably a reaction to Pastor Ricky Chan's email April 16. We hope that the church will be united.
Carmen and I will go to Miami again next two weeks. I will teach two different groups about BGP to prepare them for the CCIE lab exam. Here is our flight schedule:

*May 10 (Tue)*	AA902 CCS - MIA 07:52 - 11:06
*May 14 (Sat)*	AA2133 MIA - CCS 19:26 - 22:38

May 05, 2005(Thursday)

Usually, I am not productive in the morning. I only checked email or browse the internet. It takes about 20 mins to commute to work and another 20 mins to commute back home. Therefore, this morning, I decided to work at home. I worked on the BGP project and it was much more productive. This is the beauty of my ideal type of work. I can work any time. And this is the purpose why I want to be a professor. It is this type of flexible style that attract me. I also went for a jog in Parque del Este.
I went back to work in the afternoon to do some administrative work, like printing some labels for shipping to Indiana. Yanting came to our house at night to borrow our digital camera. She also shared about her fellowship life. Our departure away from Venezuela has impact to people's sense of belonging to the fellowship.

May 04, 2005(Wednesday)

I continued to work on the BGP course lab today. In addition, I also contacted a consulting firm headhunter called Tom Glover. I met one of his employee December 2004 last year when I taught the Cisco course in Raleigh. He refered my name to Tom and I have contacted Tom ever since. Originally, he wants me to move to South Carolina to work for him asap and he will help Carmen to find job as well. It shows that he really wants to hire me. However, since I plan to study PhD, I put all these on hold. Now I finally know where I will be, so I contacted him again for possible part-time opportunity during the next several years. He said that he has contacted the Cisco training partner Skyline adn they are interested in me to develop a Security CCIE bootcamp courseware for them. Therefore, I spent some times today in researching on this topic and clarifying the contract.
CTT told me that there are more classes for me to teach in the upcoming several days. There are two CCIE groups that I need to teach, and each of them has several session. Therefore, it is very likely that I will go to Miami the next several weeks to teach classes. I believe that Carmen will also go with me. However, since Carmen will leave Venezuela for good in May 29, the church people would like to have a farewell program for her. However, with the upcoming busy schedule, I doubt that Carmen can ever go to Chinese youth fellowship or woman fellowship again. Most likely, she can only go to Sunday Service two more times: this Sunday May 8 and May 22 (and we will probably take a night flight to Miami this day). We do not prefer to have a farewell but since the church people are so good to us, we will have a farewell together.
We have guitar class at night. My students performed during the MB Church's 14th Anniversary last Sunday. I am teaching them more songs so that they are more prepared when I leave Venezuela.

May 03, 2005(Tuesday)

Today is another day of hard work about the CCIE training that I will teach next week. I was working with the BGP configuration today. I used to be very good in this kind of routing stuff. However, after a long period of idleness without any routing practice, I really need to brush up my skill.
At night, we go to church for the fellowship again. The STM continues the training about how to lead the fellowship that started yesterday. It was not as boring as I expected. And we (the local Venezuelan Chinese Christian) made fun and joked around during the time. I hope that it would not annoy the STM.

May 02, 2005(Monday)

Finally I am using my brain and doing something productive today at work. I will teach the BGP course next week in Miami. Finally they have the lab set up for me to practice. Therefore, I spent this afternoon working with the lab set up. I need to get my brain up to speed as fast as I can so that I can teach this CCIE preparation course.
For some strange reason, Desca also has a CCIE course this week for the internal employee. They are teaching the same material too. I don't know why they don't ask me (or they don't ask that instructor) to do both courses. They are not function efficiently!
I always told the church people that I will leave soon, since two years ago! (My boss hinted that I need to go to Colombia to work in Feb 2003. Then my boss also hinted that I need to go to Mexico to work in Aug 2004. Neither one work out!) Therefore, several months ago the church council made a request to the Toronto STM about they want someone to teach them how to host a youth fellowship. Therefore, the mission of this Toronto STM is to teach us how to host a fellowship. This came as the right time because I REALLY have to leave by August. We had a sharing tonight with these people. That was not a bad night.

May 01, 2005(Sunday)

Short Term Missionaries from Toronto arrived last night and so we shared about our background today during the Sunday School session. We then went to MB Church in the afternoon for the 14th Anniversary. I am the following songs: "Canta Al Señor" (Shout to the Lord), "Fuente de Adoración" (Stream of Praises), "Jesús te Ama" (Jesus Loves you, also from SoP), "En las Nubes Oirás" (High Sing to Cloud), "Amor Sublime" (Love is not reserved), "Envíame a mi!" (Please send me, from ACM). Ana Nip translated a lot of songs lately! MB Church distributed a CD that consists a lot of songs that I introduced to them. They all copy from my CDs. This is a concept that is different from North America. Because of the lack of resource and the expensive price, they "illegally" copy all the songs from different CD, and this is actually encouraged, as long as we don't do it for business's purpose. CD, and this is actually encouraged, as long as we don't do it for business's purpose. There is also a drama by the Chinese youth fellowship. Carmen was one of the actors and she pretended to be girls that just left China and visited Venezuela. She looks very funny.
After dinner at MB Church, Eric and Yanting came to our house and we practice songs for the singspiration next Sunday. We jam songs and had a lot of fun. We always enjoy to practice music with brothers and sisters.