Two days ago my husband received a support ticket regarding a temporary employee unable to log into her machine. My husband updated her password and verified and he could log in and closed the ticket. A day later, the ticket was reopened with the same issue. This time my husband tried her login on a different machine and true enough, he got the invalid username or password error. He searched Active Directory looking for the temporary employee’s login and found nothing. It appeared someone had deleted the employee’s account.

My husband scratched his head and inquired Watson:

“Watson, did you do anything with Mary’s account?”

Watson: “Yes, the manager requested that I delete her account.”

My husband got the manager on the phone and asked about the situation. The manager confirmed that he created a ticket to have Mary removed from a certain mailing list. As my husband was on the phone with the manager, Watson was listening and became rather irritated and printed the ticket and showed it to my husband. The ticket titled “Remove Mary from mailing list ABC”. My husband said to Watson:

“Watson, the ticket requested her removed from a mailing list, you deleted her entire Active Directory account!”

Watson: “How else was I supposed to get her off that mailing list?”

My husband: “Remove her from the mailing list?”

Watson barked: “Yes! I could have done that!” and stormed off and did not say anything else.

My father and his girlfriend’s family visited Gui Lin about a month ago.

Although the scenery was exceptional like you’d expect but his experience was far from it. Gui Lin is a cyclone for tourist traps. He shared some of his bad experience and they were so jaw dropping, I have to blog about them.

The Taxi
There is no meter on any of the taxi in that city. You bargain the price prior to your ride with the taxi driver and then s/he takes you to your destination. See a problem with this particular arrangement or lack of governmental enforcement of honesty? Well, he’s experienced it.

On the way back from a previous trip, my father inquired the average cab fare from his hotel to the dock for his next day’s cruise. The driver indicated around 60 rmb. The next morning, a different taxi driver wanted 80 rmb for the ride. My father did not give in since he thought the fare should be 60 rmb. The taxi driver instead of not agreeing to the ride, took the 60 rmb and dropped them off at a different dock than their actual desired destination. It took them a while to figure out they were at the WRONG dock since they were unfamiliar with the area. They were late for their cruise and had to spend additional fare in order to travel to the correct dock.

The Bamboo Raft Ride
A bamboo raft takes you down the stream of the river slowly by its current. My father had arranged a taxi to pick them up at the end of the trip. Although the price of the ride was advertised to include food, they provided inedible dishes on the raft so they could market other dishes for extra cost. There were various vendors who stationed at different locations down the stream. Some claimed the fish dishes were prepared with fish freshly caught in the river earlier in the morning. They charged a lot for them. My father and his girlfriend’s family did not purchase any. They were later dropped off at a dock in which they thought was the end of the trip. However, after a half hour wait for the taxi, my father called the taxi driver he paid for. The taxi driver informed my dad that he was dropped at the wrong location. The raft people dropped them off way prior to the end of the trip. My father was once more duped for exercising his right of not purchasing overpriced marketed tourist goods.

Gui Lin has been on my list of must visit places for a long time. Based on my dad’s accounts, I think I’m going to wait a little longer for that wish.

I know Grails is hot and cool but I don’t like it. It’s probably just a personal preference.

Why don’t I want to use Grails

• It’s built on spring and hibernate, so why not just use them directly?
• It’s just adding another layer of complexity. Now if something goes wrong, you need to know grails (groovy) plus all of the frameworks it uses underneath.
• The generation bit is nice but personally I want control over all of the magic. You will need to modify them anyway. So why not just write them from scratch and LEARN YOUR HTML? This reminds me of the old Microsoft FrontPage HTML generation that always bit my ass when I first started creating web pages. But it probably wouldn’t be as bad since Microsoft was targeting their own browsers with the HTML generated.
• The URL mapping is stupid. Spring’s innate annotation style mapping is so much easier.
• I’m not a fan of the taglib. Why do I ever want to write HTML in Java? It makes me feel dirty. Plus it’s harder to debug. Personally the only “taglib” I like is facelets’ version. It felt more like writing HTML.

The only thing I really liked about Grails based on the presentation is the orm custom mapping. I prefer that over hibernate’s innate xml or annotation.

class Person {
  String firstName
  static mapping = {
      table 'people'
      firstName column:'First_Name'
  }
}

But that’s hardly worth a complete switch.

During the whole presentation I was thinking of a pyramid:

I remember not too long ago Spring and Hibernate are the newest and coolest kids on the block. Now we are just piling it on. What will we add next? I mean do you still need know Java any more to support applications? You really just need tons and tons of framework knowledge. Where do you get these knowledge from school? They are not going to teach them in college.

jQuery UI autocomplete widget is NOTHING like the original jQuery autocomplete plugin!!!

At least by jQuery UI version 1.8.2 it’s not.

The jQuery UI autocomplete widget is crap just like I remembered when it first came out.

Things I found that annoyed the heck out of me:

• Highlight doesn’t work. Use this hack instead.
• Must match doesn’t work. More info available here.
  I ended up using a separate javascript function I wrote.
  

  function jQueryUIAutoCompleteMustMatch(input) {
  	var found = 0;
  	
  	var matcher = new RegExp( "^" + $.ui.autocomplete.escapeRegex( jQuery.trim($(input).val()) ) + "$", "i" );
  	
  	jQuery.each($('.ui-autocomplete li'), function(i, val) {
  		if(jQuery.trim( $(val).text() ).match( matcher ) ) {
  			found = 1;
  		}
  	});
  	
  	if (found) {
  		return true;
  	} else {
  		$(input).val('');
  		return false;
  	}
  }
  

  inside of your autocomplete setup, do

  change: function(event, ui) {jQueryUIAutoCompleteMustMatch($(this));}
  

• To mimic the scrollHeight property on the autocomplete plugin, you will need to use css overrides. More info here (Example).
  

  .ui-autocomplete {
  	max-height: 220px;
  	overflow-y: auto;
  	/* prevent horizontal scrollbar */
  	overflow-x: hidden;
  	/* add padding to account for vertical scrollbar */
  	padding-right: 20px;
  }
  /* IE 6 doesn't support max-height
   * we use height instead, but this forces the menu to always be this tall
   */
  * html .ui-autocomplete {
  	height: 220px;
  }
  

• To mimic the behavior of the option formatResult in the original plugin, you may do something like:
  

  $( "#tags" ).autocomplete({
  	source: availableTags,
  	minLength: 0,
  	delay: 0,
  	close: function(event, ui) {
  		var numberOnly = $(this).val().match(/\d+/);
  		$(this).val(numberOnly);
  	}
  })
  ;
  

  
  Above is to format the result as number only.

• If you want the pop up search results as soon as the user has the focus on the input without entering anything, you will need to bind the search call on the focus event of the input. More info here.
  I ended up with
  

  $(input).autocomplete({
  		source: list
  	})
  	.focus(function() {
  		$(this).autocomplete("search");
  	})
  	;
  

• I finally recognized that the jQuery UI autocomplete widget has far fewer options you may set. For example, by version 1.8.2, below are the only options
  • disabled
  • appendTo
  • autoFocus
  • delay
  • minLength
  • position
  • source

  If you wish to get your autocomplete working the same as your old one, chances are you will need to add a lot more additional code/hack.

This is the biggest disappointment for me since I started using jQuery.

>>> My Example with everything configured the way I want <<<

The Favorite Thing:
The climate. It’s just crazy to think you do not sweat after miles of walking in 90 degree weather because it’s not humid. My skin looks gorgeous here. There is no road construction because the asphalt just doesn’t break and bend like it is in Iowa.

The Least Favorite Thing:
The cigarettes smell. I’m totally ready to get out of this ash tray after a week of consistent second hand smoke.

The Biggest Disappointment:
Stack restaurant. You are not paying high prices for the food quality or quantity but rather the *hip* atmosphere. Unfortunately the atmosphere did not attract us. When the music was playing, the bass was so loud that I thought I was sitting on a massage chair. The hostess looked unfriendly and was more interested in sizing us up than seating us. I think the prices on the menu are filters for people. Stack is more of a yuppie pick up place than a restaurant.

The Happiest Memory:
We had a great time meeting the LV Cabbie especially our trip with him to Hoover Dam.

The Funniest Experience:
My husband was taking a dump in the bathroom. All of the time he was on the toilet, he was hearing the slot machine music. As soon as a big load came out, the music changed to the victorious winning fanfare. He was waiting for someone to open his stall and hand him some money. It was perfectly well timed.

The Shows:

• Ron White’s show was excellent. The guy who opened up for him was hilarious.
• Criss Angel’s show was great. Although the disappearance acts were getting a bit repetitive toward the end. He definitely added a nice touch of comedy to his show with his assistants.
  • My husband, Andy, ordered us front row seats. Criss did the “foresee the future” act. He tossed his arm band randomly into the audience and then had the person who got the band toss it randomly to another person and then another person. The three random people in the audience had Margret as the first name, Canada as the birth place and 7 as the favorite number respectively. In a chest placed in the mid air prior to the beginning of the show resided a piece of paper with “Margret, Canada, 7” written on it. After the act, Criss gave the paper to me. It’s nice to get a souvenir (photo) from the show but too bad it’s just an ordinary piece of paper. It’s hard to convince people of its origin.
• The O show was ridiculously amazing. There are not enough adjectives in the English language to properly depict its magnificence. The stage, the performers and the musicians (they do most of their music LIVE) were all perfect. I feel proud they had to put the Chinese female acrobats toward the end of the show. Not much could look more impressive than that. After the show, I wanted to purchase some souvenirs of the Chinese girls but nothing even remotely represented them in their shop.

Other Reflections:

• MGM Grand turned out to be a great hotel to stay at. We used our Jacuzzi spa (photo) every day we stayed. We enjoyed lounging around their lazy river and grand pools (photo 1 | photo 2 | photo 3 | photo 4 | photo 5 | photo 6). The top three hotels among the ones we visited are: MGM Grand, The Mirage and Rio.
• Hoover Dam was extraordinary (photos). You feel insignificant in such a grand construction surrounded by beautiful water and mountains.
• The fountains shows at Bellagio were breathtaking (video 1 | video 2). It was hard to believe they were giving out such artistic and well choreographed shows for free.
• We are willing to stay at Rio next time. Even though it’s off the Strip, but with convenient free shuffle service and two ridiculously delicious buffets, World Carnival Buffet (video) and Village Seafood Buffet (video), it’s worth it.
• We loved this little frozen yogurt place in the Mirage called Blizz. My husband found his new favorite flavor: pistachio.
• The most commonly littered items are cigarette butts, beer bottles and nude women flyers.

Lessons Learned:

• The maps they give out at the hotels are awfully deceiving and horribly out of scale. Just because it looks close on the map doesn’t necessarily mean it’s in walking distance.
• Always have a cab company number handy. Flagging cabs doesn’t work here as well as in other big cities like Shanghai if you wander off the crowded areas.
• If you want a good place to eat, ask a cab driver. If you want a great place to eat, ask a fat cab driver like the LV Cabbie. He recommended China Mama which turned out to be one of the best dining experiences we had in Las Vegas.
• If you want to visit more of the surrounding suburbs and places where the locals go, I suggest you rent a car. Cab fare may stack up quickly if you do not.

The Photos:

Las Vegas Vacation | Hoover Dam | MGM Grand Pool

Things we will be doing

• meeting the LV cabbie in person. Yay! I’ve been reading his blog for a long time. I’m so excited to meet him.
• going to the Hoover Dam.
• going to the Ron White standup.
• going to the Criss Angel show.
• going to the O (Cirque du Solei) show.
• eating at the Prime Steakhouse
• eating at the Stack restaurant.
• lounging around at the MGM Grand lazy river and our celebrity spa suite.

Wow it’s gotta be the most elaborate trip Andy and I have ever taken. A very good start and hopefully many to come!

Yea I know I’m crazily obsessed with my blog.

Sentiment from going through all of my posts

• I’m proud that my oriental wordpress theme was featured on wordpress.org. Oh gosh, it’s been so neglected. I must revive it someday!
• New Millennium still looks pretty good ya? Even though it was coded on 2/28/2008.
• I can sorta sing ya?
• Wow, I once coded in Open Laszlo Coding in xml sucks.
• The speed google crawls still blows my mind.
• What a flashback post for the 10 year online life anniversary. What will I write for the 20 year anniversary?
• Old article on how to style a table using CSS. I think it’s till very applicable untill CSS3 is solid.
• Geek T-shirts are still funny. Apparently I’m still geeky.
• Our wedding videos are so sentimental. The only thing we did as “vow” is that I sang a song for Andy and Andy read a poem he wrote for me.
• JErm‘s comment made me blush LOL. I’m so happy that he’s still around. Most of my old friends’ sites have gone to never never land.
• I’m still surprised that my script was used in a university lecture.
• OMG, how did I use to blog so much? Going back page by page and skimming through posts prior to 2004, I was getting impatient. A couple of facts regarding OLD posts:
  • I started blogging before wordpress even existed. I used to use its predecessor b2. My first blog post ever on pure essence was installing b2.
  • I obviously used to use this blog also as twitter. But then there was NO twitter.
  • I feel like a dinosaur but a proud one
  • My English SUCKED. Not that it’s that much better now. But YUCK, I was totally speaking Chinglish.

分了或走了，甜蜜回忆却上心头。英语因该说是bittersweet。我知道雨过天晴后留下会是美好。一番人生体验。学习到了新的技术。交了好些新朋友。

哦，ISL，虽然我们未能一起走到最后。我会常常想念你。像想念我的初恋男友一样。

在这我留给读者在我脑中的歌词。

徐怀钰 《爱像一场重感冒》
词:姚若龙
曲:Eric Lee

写了封信给你 好像依依不舍
刚寄出去马上又后悔了
多希望邮差能把地址看错 或是弄丢了
因为你是真的 和别人不一样
不然我不会那么感伤
但是我已爱到不能爱 让到不能让
还能怎样 不如倔强
倒数三秒 我会开始努力把你忘掉
有时候爱情就像是一场重感冒 等烧退了就好
找一天将心情当房子好好地打扫
我喜欢每次丢掉多馀的东西 那种轻松美好