I Know Him So Well lyrics

Wow, seeing Susan Boyle and Elaine Paige’s performance on tv this week just brings me back to the mood for classical songs. I love their beautiful voices. I love this song – all the reflections, the lessons, the knowledge, the understanding, the fears, the unsureness from a woman’s heart. It’s scary to think of this phrase: “Nothing is so good will last eternally?” What is so good and what is not so good, while the ultimate purpose any human being (at least from common perspective) has is to live with the moments, life is short, gut instinct says being emotional rather than too logical. That is what we call “humane”. The statements in this song really hit home … “It took time to understand the man… I know him so well…”

Nothing is so good it lasts eternally
Perfect situations must go wrong
But this has never yet prevented me
From hoping for too much for far too long
Looking back I could have played it differently
Wond a few more moments, who can tell?
But it took time to understand the man
Now at least I know I know him well
Wasn't it good? (Oh so good)
Wasn't he fine? (Oh so fine)
Isn't it madness he won't be mine
But in the end he needs a little bit
More than me, more security
(He needs his fantasy and freedom)
I know him so well
No one in your life is with you constantly
No one is completely on your side
And though I move my world to be with him
Still the gap between us is too wide
Looking back I could have played it differently
(Looking back I could have played things some other way)
Learned about the man before I fell
(I was just a little careless, maybe)
But I was ever so much younger then
Now at least I know I know him well
Wasn't it good?
(Oh so good)
Wasn't he fine?
(Oh so fine)
Isn't it madness
He won't be mine?
Didn't I know
How it would go
If I knew from the start
Why am I falling apart?
Wasn't it good
Wasn't he fine
Isn't it madness
He won't be mine?
But in the end he needs a little bit
More than me, more security
(He needs his fantasy and freedom)
I know him so well
It took time to understand him
I know him so well


Read Full Post »

So relieved

Half-way through the month of December, exactly one day after the 15th which is the day I targeted for my script to be successfully run and released, and finally… YES! Whew, yay, hooray, i did it. After weeks of brainy work, days of testing and testing and fixing, and less than normal hrs of sleep, I am done with my major coding project. A new process and a good enhancement added to the system – that’s what staff was looking forward to. An accomplishment for me! I am patting my shoulder. 🙂 I can sleep more and can go on vacation for the rest of the year. I deserve it! Hee hee… What’s on my plan, I still don’t have it. Can’t think of where to go for the winter… I just need more down time… A good break would be nice. But it won’t be long. One project down. There are more to come.

Read Full Post »

Facts about spams/spammers – from Project Honey Pot

Very interesting highlights from the Project Honey Pot
– A billionth spam message received on December 10th
– “Fraud” spammers – those committing phishing or so-called “419” advanced fee scams – tend to send to and discard harvested addresses almost immediately.
– Whereas, “product” spammers tend to hold on to email addresses longer and send on average several messages a week to each address on their list.
– “There is a 21% decrease in spam on Christmas Day and a 32% decrease on New Year’s Day. Monday is the biggest day of the week for spam, while Saturday receives only about 60% of the volume of Monday’s messages.” Bad guys take vacations too!
– IRS is the second most hit entity which is used for frauding comsumers by spammers
– Though a lot of spams originate from foreign countries; there are more “bot” machines located in the US
– Most common blog-attacking spammers come from the USA
– On the lists of Best IT Security vs. Worst IT Security:
Best IT Security
#1 Finland
#2 Canada
#3 Belgium
#4 Australia
#5 Netherlands
#6 United States – We (our IT systems) are not as secure as that of Canada! :-{
#7 Norway
#8 New Zeland
#9 Sweden
#10 Estonia
Worst IT Security
#1 China
#2 Azerbaijan
#3 South Korea
#4 Colombia
#5 Macedonia
#6 Turkey
#7 Viet Nam
#8 Kazakhstan
#9 Macau
#10 Brazil
I was expecting to see Nigeria or Indonesia in this list, but they probably are on other reports.

Read Full Post »

nopCommerce – Mail Setting w/ GoDaddy Hosting

For any admin who sets up or stumbles through the setup of a new e-commerce website using nopCommerce and the host provider is Godaddy, to configure the mail setting, use
the host name: relay-hosting.secureserver.net
After trying to dig through forums and help pages, there is only one place that provides the correct answer, which is on GoDaddy. But I also want to list here as another resource.

Host : relay-hosting.secureserver.net

Port : 25

User : Your full email address.

Password : Your email account password.

Enable SSL : Do not enable this option.

Use default credentials : Do not enable this option.

Read Full Post »

Synthesis vs. Analysis

I have gained a new perspective from reading this comment posted at AnswerBag. What led me to this page was a triggering comment by a guy friend yesterday, about “women are complicated” (from his experience, I confirmed). I could analyze on and on, I would or may never get what he had in mind. I could have a bunch of questions for him to answer, but then I would become so aggressive or opinionated. Good or bad?
Well, I am very convinced by this excerpt that sometimes instead of analyzing we’d just accept the facts or be aware of the happenings. A kid in me always wants me to ask why, ponder into the reasons behind certain incidents. But over the years, I’ve learned to accept the answers, to just be aware of the facts to what happened, not to ask why too much. Awareness refers to knowing or finding out the why, the what, it takes some problem solving (again, analytical) skills, I believe, and then we have to understand that is the how of the matter. The final picture is what we hold as a lesson or just an acknowledgment. And now I find the word for this process, “synthesis”.

Complicated and simple are actually two sides of the same coin: in order to see complexity, you have to have the notion of simplicity, and vice-versa. So neither complexity NOR simplicity have any independent reality of their own.

But so what? That’s not really what we humans are concerned about when this question comes up, is it? What we want to really know is “why am I confused, and how can I know what’s important and what to focus on?” There’s an anxiety associated with this sense that life is so complex that it’s pulling us in many directions at once and we can’t get “centered”.

There are two opposite capacities that we have as humans: analysis and synthesis. Analysis is based in the mind’s ability to separate things from each other: to form concepts, draw boundaries, build models of relationships, etc. This discriminative ability is what makes life look complicated: WE chop reality up into lots of little pieces and study them in isolation, and the number of such pieces we can create is actually infinite.

So if we ONLY have analysis running (without any synthesis), we end up with a distressingly LARGE supply of pieces to study.

Synthesis is different: synthesis puts pieces together into larger wholes. Most of us are not nearly as good at synthesis as we are at analysis, but many of us can do it well in specific areas: someone who has really “mastered” an art form, craft, or sport is practicing synthesis — they have “become one” with their chosen discipline, creating a synthesis in which “self and paint”, or “self and instrument”, or “self and ball” have ceased to be two completely separate things, and have merged into a larger whole.

From the outside, such a synthesis may look like magic, and in a way it is. But it’s more valuable to see the deeper process at work: the collecting of bits and pieces and restoring their original wholeness, prior to discrimination / separation — that’s what resolves our anxiety about complexity.

So why does THIS explanation sound so complicated? Because the mind which analyzes wants to cling to thorough explanations, and having such an explanation helps it to relax a bit. What we’re really talking about in practical terms is learning to be aware (synthesis) instead of continuing to focus on thinking (analysis).

Awareness is synthesis: if you want life to be simpler, without going down some strange tunnel like throwing out 90% of your stuff, learn to be more aware. That will solve the life-is-complicated problem where it really matters.

I used to have this saying “Life is complicated already. Simplify it.” Since I’ve practiced awareness and synthesized all that life has offered, yes, “life is short. Life has its own meaningful seasons”.
Next time I would just say “That is so her”. Or, “that is just him”. The choice we make, the life we take. We can choose to accept him/her, but can’t change who he/she is.
On a Christian TV station, the hostess always says bye with “Life is fragile. Take care of each other.”
So, using the opening sentence I can conclude it in this quote: “Complicated and simple are actually two sides of the same coin – the key is you can flip your coin.”

Read Full Post »

Tombe la neige

Raw Horses frolick in the snow in Missouri City

Houston had a good snow-fall today, exactly 1 yr since the last one. Not like the sudden and short one that came late during the day last year, this snowfall was expected and falling all day long. It was a snow shower actually. The northwest-southeast wind coming from Western Canada and the Rockies brought an early Christmas gift – a white Christmas – to Texas, more to the Central Plain and South East regions of Texas. The snow flurries were like little parts of a big snowy cloud circling in the sky of the city. As always they looked pretty throughout the window. Watching it brought me back to the old snowy days in Iowa, just like any kids sitting by the window looking out through window or looking dreamy… and that romantic song “Tombe la neige” belonged to our hearts ever since. Yes, that feeling and the fireplace… It would be nice to cozy up in a blanket cuddling with and snuggling to that someone (I am a huge fan of being cuddled and giving cuddles; there is something about having a hug that just warms up my soul and makes the dark clouds dissapear, even if only for a moment) as I imagined this morning during a conversation with a LDMF (for now I guess)….
By the time I got out of office, the grass field to the side of the building was topped with a sparkling thin snow layer. Some cars still had icy snow flakes on their roofs. The sun came out briefly and was hurriedly chased away by the full moon. The roads were not too bad (compared to all those sleets up north with sand and salt that can damage any vehicles) driving home through the central and southwest area, just a few flooded areas here and there. Well, I left the office late, so as to avoid slow traffics.
The schools had to close early, and the companies around the city therefore always dismiss employees early. Parents hurried out to pick up their kids from school; buses run late; flights canceled or delayed; UPS/FedEx delivery postponed. Icy road conditions are reported to be serious on the highway loops / freeways. There was a spinning-car accident caused by black ice. I got some of those nerve-cracking, fun experiences. Hmm… black ice? I’d call it a below-zero Fahrenheit degree ball of polluted air and water. Mys sister Lily was driving back to Houston from Victoria. Hope she’d make it back safely.
After the snowy day, came the freezing cold night. The temperature is falling tonight.
HPD and Houston regional DOT office do not have enough sanding trucks. The city has some dump trucks of crushed rocks. Not sure where they use this stuff. While highways always need sands, Dallas always needs sanding trucks to keep them survive the winter road conditions; Houston goes with the liquid Magnesium Chloride to keep the bridges and overpasses from being too slick for traffic.
It’ll be in low 20’s by tomorrow morning.
‘Twas a historically snowy Friday for Houston, a “winter blizzard” day for Texans.

Read Full Post »

Oh no the flu….

or the cold? My sinuses are acting up since last night.
“Oh no the cold,
The flu has come,
The flu shot did not work… ” (Joy to the world)
The turkey week was nice; we had too much food; I did not eat much but got tired from running around, I guess. Now I feel it. It is going to be a cold week, the first week of December.
Monday after vacation was just for catching up. A bunch of mail/messages to go through and delete… I felt the cold and made an excuse to get out and stop by Sterling McCall for the car maintenance work. Tuesday turned out more productive.
Now my eyes want to shut; sinuses feel sore; the mouth feels dry and so thirsty.
Not so sure if I should come in or work at home tomorow. Forgot that I am out of TheraFlu.
I am going to make me a big glass of lime juice and drink it up for good.

Read Full Post »