It’s a new year. A new day. Though 2008 was a year of losses, I’m still thankful for the much that I have left. I am also thankful the global crisis hit early in my life, where I can still recover, and learn the signs to stay away from the next one. Not so lucky are those who are near or at retirement age.

Finally, I am thankful that my losses are only financial, which are not nearly as important as losses that are personal and dear to my heart. To put things in perspective, 2008 was a year of big losses, but also a year of big personal growth and gain. I am forever wiser for it.

Happy New Year! Happy 2009!

2008 has been a year of big losses for me, at least financially. I lost big on my properties, and even bigger on my stocks. Yet, I am only one of the many casualties of the global economic crisis. Never have I experienced anything that hit so swiftly, so hard. Sure, I read about it in books, and heard from elders who lived through it, but it never registered, as though it could never happen to me.

Now that I have experienced it first-hand, I can learn to respect its ferocity, its impartialness. Everyone is a target. We can’t stop it when it hits, but we can try to get out of the way early, to cut our losses.

Patience is a virtue, not a cliché. Don’t rush into decisions when they are money decisions. If you spend more time picking clothes than you do stocks, then that says a lot about your lack of taste in stocks.

Love your investments but don’t fall in love with them. It clouds good judgement. It makes you hang on when it’s time to let go.

Those are the rules I shall live by to prevent myself from becoming a casualty again when the next crisis hits.

Just updated my WP blog to 2.7. The update took only minutes via DreamHost’s One-Click Installs, and the result is visually stunning. Everything in the Dashboard is clear and invites exploring. Things can be moved around, shown or hidden. Its manageable surface hides the complexity of the database. In fact, it looks so good, I might want to start using it to write my blog entries, rather than using a desktop client. It definitely looks better than ecto, which I just bought a copy yesterday. I am glad I decided to use separate blogging platforms–WordPress and Movable Type–for my two blogs. They teach me their differences and similarities, their strengths and the weaknesses, their pros and cons. It forces me to learn beneath the surface, and that’s always a good thing.

 

Lup Chong Christmas

Originally uploaded by kwong

So I was downstairs having dinner with my friend, when after, we walked up to the cashier and found this unique ensemble encased in a see-thru display. Inside laid sliced and glazed preserved pork and duck sausages on a lighted bowl, while some made into flowers that hanged in the air. On the bottom is a golden ribbon streamer wrapped around beneath the bowl for that special festive look. My friend found it extremely ugly, and told the cashier so, but I found it one of a kind. Who would have thought of such tasteful/distasteful decoration?

It’s windy in Hong Kong today. It feels like Autumn is finally here. Only problem is it’s November and we’ll already be entering Winter next month. Scary.

For on November 4th 2008 Americans elected our first black president of the United States. It’s a century overdue, but worth the wait. Barack Obama is smart, charismatic, calm and bi-racial. Both blacks and whites should be proud to have him represent them, as should all other Americans. Now when people in other countries call Americans hypocrites, I can finally respond in all honesty: We are not hypocrites, we have an African-American president.

Next on the to-do list for United States: a woman president.

I’m a fan of Moleskine for my personal journaling, as I’ve been for over 3 years. Today, I stumbled upon a WordPress theme of the same name, with the look and feel of the pulp original. It excited me enough to want to finally learn how to add themes to my WordPress blog. It was easier than I thought. I just had to download the theme, unzip it, fire up FTP, navigate to directory “wp-content -> themes” and throw the “ubmoleskine” folder inside. Then I threw the other files in the plugins folder inside the “wp-content -> plugins” directory. After that, the Moleskine theme showed up in my themes’ directory where I can select it.

What I really like about this theme is that it’s very readable on the iPhone.

Remember how dead my plant was after the last typhoon, where there wasn’t a single leaf left alive? Well, after I stripped clean the dead leaves and branches, and continued to water and fertilize it, it has miracously started to come back to life. The new leaves are green and young and full of life. They’re sprouting from new and old branches that look strong as ever. It’s still a long way from what it used to be–I called it “the tree”–but as long as the typhoons stay away, There’s hope my neighbor won’t be able to see right through my balcony into my home, or vice versa, as it was the original intention of getting the tree: to fend off nosey neighbors.

I just bought the app for my iPhone. It works with both WordPress and Movable Type, so I can use it for my personal and not-so personal blog. I was using the free WordPress app and Movable Type plugin (iMT) before, but iBlogger has basic functions like inline pictures and hyperlinking that the other apps lack. And because the developer is extremely responsive, I suspect the app will be updated and improved over time.