Records

Looking back this past year, I thank God for He's been too good to me:

1. My faith, growing deeper, more committed than ever before. I've read through the Bible about two or three times already since I became a Christian in 1993. For sure, I've been through the Vietnamese translation once, and English translation once, and the NIV Audio Bible once. In 2006, I tried to read the assigned portion of each day in The One Year Bible. I have a checkered record in 2006 but hope those holes will be filled in 2007. For each day that I read the portion, I wrote 2006 for that day. I am going to go back and hopefully filled the days that did not have 2006 written on that page with 2007. I've decided to go back and start memorizing Scriptures again, reminded by Bill Gothard, and determined to make use of more of my God given brain than the 2% utilization most of us ever use of our memory.

2. My family: mom, dad and my younger brother, for their health and for their unconditional love and support for me.

3. Glad to be now in my 7th year with Nortel. We had a 10-to-1 reverse stock split. Won a two billion dollars contract with Verizon. Stock is now just above $26 compare to $2.15 a month ago.

4. My carelessness finally caught up with me, I backed out of the driveway and had a collision. Well, thank God no one was seriously injured and everything was ok.

5. Been president of VPS Dallas for a year now, half way through my 2-year term.

6. It feels good to live a totally debt free life this past year. Start to save up some cash. Half way there with my goal of saving up 20% for my first house. But with my good credit, I'll don't even need to put anything down. Have been hunting with my agent but really haven't found a house I really like and can easily afford.

7. Get to know so many new people and make many new friends. Will be the vice president for political activities for the Dallas County Young Republicans this coming year as well as treasurer for Dallas County North Republican club. Rolling off the deacon board at church as I am term limited out.

My new year resolution is still somewhat the same:

1. Move up my time of coming to work earlier, like 08:00 or maybe even 07:30. That way, I can have time to work out everyday and then go to a lot of functions in the evening.

2. Maybe I could use the cash save up to invest wisely and pay cash for the next car I buy.

3. Play a few songs with my guitar, maybe even some classical pieces.

Long term things I want to do here before going home to my Lord, Savior and Creator:

1. Speak Spanish fluently.

2. Get my private pilot license, first single engine VFR, and eventually multi-engine IFR.

3. Learn how to play the piano.

4. Read and write at least another language: German, Chinese or Russian.

Installed PostCast server to have my own free SMTP server and I am happy with it.

Mrs. Betty Ford and president Gerald R. Ford married for 58 years. Now that's the kind of woman every man would pray to God for, who stood with her man through thick and thin, where you can really be the most powerful man on top of the world one moment and all alone with no ally and no friend the next moment.

Psiphon is a great tool to help folks from countries like China, Vietnam, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, ... to poke holes through their government's firewall to access information uncensored.

A reminder that not everyone enjoys the right to speak one's mind and gets to choose one's government. So, everyone should get out and vote in every election where you can.

Early voting for the January 9th, 2007 runoff election started yesterday and will continue until January 5th, 2007 at two locations:

1. Josey Ranch Lake Library at 1700 Keller Springs Road
2. Sandy Jacobs Government Center (formerly Denton County Government Center) at 1029 W. Rosemeade.

Schedule are as follow:

8 a.m.-5 p.m. on December 27-29 (Wednesday-Friday)
8 a.m.-5 p.m. on December 30 (Saturday)
1 p.m.-6 p.m. on December 31 (Sunday)
8 a.m.-5 p.m. on January 2 - 3 (Tuesday-Wednesday)
7 a.m.-7 p.m. on January 4 - 5 (Thursday-Friday)

It's down to two candidates, Terry Simons and Jack Stotz. I am definitely voting for Terry as many others, because I know for sure he's a Republican and has no undue influence from the likes of Bob McCranie, who has strongly opposed Congressman Kenny Marchant. If you ask me, I think Kenny is doing a great job representing the 24th congressional district of Texas.

Had lunch with my friend Sang at Korean House before heading downtown to run some errand. Then dropped by the DFW Gun Range and put 200 rounds through my Sigarms P229. I am satisfied with being able to hit my target right on at 10 yards distance pretty accurate most of the time.

It is said two 15-minute sessions of cardio are better to train your endurance than one 30-minute session so that's what I've been meaning to do. Today, I put in 20 minutes on the treadmill at Bally and I am ready to get out the door and go for an hour of Krav Maga. Will try to do this as often as I could. That reminds me I need to call and get the folks to come by to fix my Nordic Track treadmill this week since I am off.

I am happy with avast! 4.7 FREE Antivirus 64 bit Home Edition and would recommend it.

A bunch of us from church went to the Dallas Cowboys against Philadelphia Eagles game today at Texas Stadium.

Here is yours truly:


the players stretching before the game:


and the cheerleaders:




We lost slow, boring, dragged out game so there was practically nothing to cheer for, and nothing worth taking a picture of. First we had no offense, so we cheer for the defense but then no defense either.

We had a full day today, with regular Sunday service in the morning and then an outreach service tonight at church. The outreach service went really well, with a lot of original ideas, home made drums for the kids, their synchronized dance, and a short invitation by our senior pastor, no sermon. Big thanks to our coordinators Paul & Tony. In between the services, working on the sound systems, and choir rehearsal, both for the evening service and a wedding this coming Saturday, I caught snippets of the Denver Broncos against Cincinnati Bengals game. My favorite three teams, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, and New England Patriots, are all doing relatively well.

I am not a movie kind of guy but once in a while, I do like to watch one. I really enjoyed watching Ikiru, meaning "to live" in Japanese, an interesting movie by Akira Kurosawa.

Christmas greetings from Carrollton City Councilman Matthew Marchant and Addison Mayor Joe Chow came in the mail this week. Matthew has a beautiful picture of his family by Michelle Stiglets Photography. Joe included a collage of pictures of him with his wife Chi Chi, the troops, the governor, ....

We had a full rehearsal of our Christmas service tonight. A lot of retakes!

Finally Christmas greetings from governor Rick Perry came in the mail yesterday, quoting 1 Thessalonians 3:12.


Congratulations, Karl!
Your IQ score is 136

Your Intellectual Type is Visionary Philosopher. This means you are highly intelligent and have a powerful mix of skills and insight that can be applied in a variety of different ways. Like Plato, your exceptional math and verbal skills make you very adept at explaining things to others — and at anticipating and predicting patterns. And that's just some of what we know about you from your IQ results.

Dear valued Bank of America Bank member:

Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of the Bank of America
account we issued this warning message.

It has come to our attention that your Bank of America Bank account information needs to be
Verified becauase incorrect login of your account details.Also,several login of your account details on different IP.so we have place your account on Hold.You can only recieve funds but any withdrawal will not be possible
is part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to
reduce the instance of fraud on our website. We advice you to please take 5-10 minutes
out of your online experience and Verify your personal records so that you account could be more secure and easy banking .

Once you have Verified your account records your Bank of America account
will be re-activated and you will be able to perform all transaction with your online account service with the best secure online banking .

To Re-activate your Bank of America Account Account click on the following link:
Re-activate
Security Advisor
James Clark,

Thank You.




I almost fell for the email above because it coincided with me forgetting my password and tried to login to my Bank of America checking account a few times. However, when I clicked on the link, it asked too many questions, such as social security number, account number, my ATM card number, .... I didn't remember some of the info so I left to come back another time. When I came back today, I filled in almost half way through, then got really suspicious. Look at the URL, http://prodev.bethelsd.org/Boa/index.htm, it's nowhere near resemblance of a Bank of America URL. Went back to the email, looked at the full header of the email, saw the "Return-path", in bold below, I immediately forwarded the email, with full-header, to abuse@bankofamerica.com. I do believe the Holy Spirit prompted me to be suspicious and not click that "Submit" button. Thank God! Also, retrospectively, look at the text of the email, there are so many syntax mistakes, like uppercase letters at the wrong places, misspelled words, no space after a period, ... and grammatical mistakes. It would have been shamefully ironic for a Computer Science major with a graduate degree focusing on Computer Network Security to fall for a rudimentary trick like this one. Be warned and stay safe.


From: - Thu Dec 21 11:36:08 2006
...
Return-path: «apache@hostc.hoster.gr»
...
...
Subject: Security Alert(Your Account Has Been Suspended)! ! !
From: Bank Of America «security@bofa.com»
Reply-To:
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.5/2318/Tue Dec 12 18:58:25 2006 on hostc.hoster.gr
X-Virus-Status: Clean

I didn't feel well, had to stay home and missed the Dallas County Young Republicans Christmas party last night.

Christmas greetings from Texas senator-elect Dan Patrick, cited John 3:16, came in the mail yesterday.

Today came Christmas greetings from senator Richard Burr of North Carolina. Also came in the mail today was the invitation for the inauguration of governor Rick Perry and lieutenant governor David Dewhurst on January 16th, 2007 in Austin.

Christmas greetings from senator John Thune and family came in the mail yesterday, quoting Colossians 1:16b, 17: "All things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."

There are study that the majority of women will pick tall men who may not be as well off over short rich ones. Going further, in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman quoted studies that quantified on average, an inch in height translates to about between $700 to $800 higher earning per annum. So a 6'2" guy will make on average about $3,500 to $4,000 more per year than one who is 5'9", which is the average height of an American male.

I am listening to the audio of the 9/11 Commission Report, and hopefully will finish it before Jan. so that when the Dems claim to implement the recommendations in that report, I can tell how much lies there are.

The Dallas Cowboys is in the playoff, yeah!

After church service and lunch, the guys got out to dig hole to put down two steal poles and then poured concrete so we can put up a new sign. Then we had wedding shower for ThuyTrinh & Phong at Quynh's house. I took off and went to another party to send off a friend who has just accepted a new job in Raleigh, NC.

At the DFWAACC board meeting and holiday luncheon today, they had peach cobbler for deserts so I had some of it. When they brought out the ice cream later, I was tempted to make another trip for some ice cream but I am proud of myself for I was able to resist. I have been pretty good at watching what I eat and drink, especially how big of a portion. My brother kept warning me how much sugar there is in every can of Coke or Pepsi, 41 grams, which is too much. I have had only one can of Pepsi in the last six months. I used to not even think when I order Dr. Pepper in a restaurant. Nowaday, water or ice tea will do for me.

Did you know that the first SMS, which said simply "Merry Christmas" was sent on December 3rd, 1992 by a British engineer named Neil Papworth from his computer to his friend's mobile phone.

VPS Dallas had our annual Christmas party tonight. Great food, fun including white elephant gift exchange.

In the mail came today Christmas greetings from attorney general Greg Abbott, with a picture of him on election night with family and supporters, quoting scripture in Luke 2:14.

I am listening to an interesting audio book titled Blink: the power of thinking without thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. One rather significant conclusion in a study by John Gottman mentioned in the book is that in any marriage there are four negative emotions that hurt the marriage: critical, defensive, stonewalling, and contempt. Contempt, talking or looking down at the other person, is one deciding factor leading to the failure of a particular marriage. What is interesting is that in the Bible, Ephesians 5:22-26 to be exact, God commanded the wife to submit to the husband as the church submits to Christ and the husband is commanded to love his wife even to the point of giving his life for her as Christ did for the church. Now if a man loves his wife to the point of giving his life for her, he can't possibly have contempt for her. If a woman submits to her husband the way the church submits to Christ, she can't possibly have contempt for him. Maybe if Christians live more Christ-like, just as Bill Maher suggested in an interview, the world would doubt Him less and maybe the divorce rate among those who claim to be Christians would be way less than 51% rate in the secular world.

Check this out. Charles Lingerfelt is a good friend, committed fellow Dallas County Republican precinct chair, a great American.

It's just a matter of time and now it's my alma mater's turn. I was an undergrad from 1995 to 1999 and then grad from 1999 to 2002 so I guess I am part of the 6,000 students who might be affected according to this notice.

Christmas greetings from Congressman Pete Sessions came in the mail today. Beautiful picture of him and his family on the steps of the US Capitol.

Metasploit is a really interesting project. Check it out especially if you are into security.

It looks like 7-term congressman Henry Bonilla lost the runoff election today, with 45% of the vote. I and Rick were wondering about this race at the Christmas party tonight at the home of Randall and Krickett Goss. It's another nail in the coffin. The Gosses have a beautiful house that took them three years to remodel. Randall is chairman and CEO of U.S. Risk Insurance Group, Inc., the third largest managing general agency and surplus lines insurance wholesaler in the nation, headquartered right here in Dallas. The couple were most welcoming and gracious.

I stopped by Nordstrom to pick up a pair of dress shoes tonight since I already shopped Macy's, JCPenney, Dillard's, the Saturday after Thanksgiving and did not find anything I really like. Found a pair I like and asked for 8 1/2 size and the guy brought me size 41 and 42. Apparently the pair is Italian made, Calzoleria Toscana. Size 41 was perfect for me.

Christmas greetings from senator Mel Martinez came in the mail today, quoting Psalm 33:22 along with beautiful family picture.

Came in last week were greetings from Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, also with beautiful family picture and scriptures found in Proverbs 3:5-6, Congressman Kenny Marchant, which is adorned with a picturesque US Capitol snapshot, Agriculture Commissioner and Comptroller-elect Susan Combs, quoting Psalm 72:3 and a picture showing beautiful view of the Combs Maravillas Ranch, Texas 5th Court of Appeals Justice Amos Mazzant, decorated with the most exquisitely beautiful black and white photo of his family.

Installed my SATA 500Gb drive and had it up and running in no time at all last night.

Our church had its annual meeting today with election of new members to the board. I am term limited out after three consecutive 2-year terms. This allows me to take on being treasurer for Dallas County North Republican Club and I am looking forward to having fun filing reports with the Texas Ethics Commission this next year. Got my password in the mail yesterday so I am ready to file the first report due January 15th electronically.

We were celebrating Nathan's birthday with good food, great fun and fellowship so we were going into the Cowboys vs. Saints game in pretty high spirit. Got the first touchdown and we were all whooping and yelling. Then everything just went downhill from there. We got slaughtered so bad that everybody left by the end of third quarter. Don't know whatever Bill Parcells did to Sean Payton that he really rubbed it in tonight. The Cowboys really need to get their acts together before going to Atlanta next Saturday.

The rehearsal last night and the service tonight for the combined Christmas service for all 14 different Vietnamese protestant churches in the metroplex from different denominations: Southern Baptist, United Methodist, Christian and Missionary Alliance, went reasonably well. Reasonably well because I was the sound guy and I messed up a few times!

Called Dallas County Elections today because one of my clerks who worked the general election with me on November 7th didn't get her check. Found out that they had a little problem in accounting and thus the delay. I was assured that all the checks are mailed today.

Got a key to the library so I could get in early and got ready for the election on Tuesday. Returned it to the city secretary's office this morning. The run-off election between Terry Simons and Jack Stotz will be on January 9th. Early voting begins December 27th. Terry got 17.87% of the vote and Jack Stotz got 37.46% in the six-way special election to fill the unexpired term of council member Ron Branson, who had to step down because of health reason. Paul Kramer did not make the run off but had pretty good showing consider he's a first timer with 14.20% of the vote. Turnout was 2.63%, with 1694 votes cast among a total of 64,406 registered voters. The city has more than 116,000 residents.

The Dallas YRs had our board meeting tonight, planning for next year's activities.

Got my USB 2.0 hard drive enclosure, put in the old 40Gb IDE drive, and got an external drive up and running in a few minutes.

Did you know when you called Toshiba and they gave you a prepaid UPS label to send your laptop to them for repair, that your laptop actually got fixed up by UPS folks at their Louisville, Kentucky hub and sent back to you, through insourcing by UPS and Toshiba. And Toshiba is not the only company that is trusting UPS with part of their business. So are HP, and many other companies according to Thomas L. Friedman, the author of The World is Flat.

Check this out and have fun.

My results at about midnight Sunday:

Your Absolute Brain Power 61.33% represents your percentile ranking among all members on their third run of this test. The Relative Brain Power 55.76% represents your percentile ranking among all members in your age group on their third run of this test.

Your score: 96.34
Average score for all members on the third run: 93.40
Average score for all members in your age group on the third run: 95.08
Highest score for all members on the third run: 168.35
Highest score for all members in your age group on the third run: 163.54
Highest score for all members on any run: 204.44
Highest score for all members in your age group on any run: 204.44

Your Brain Age: 48 (21 is the ultimate Brain Age according to MyBrainTrainer data)

Dallas Cowboys squeaked through to victory against the New York Giants tonight for an 8-4 record. Toss up next week against the New Orleans Saints but we should win against the Atlanta Falcons the week after. A bunch of the guys will go see the Philadelphia Eagles on Christmas Day. I expect a win in this game as well as the game against the Detroit Lions after that. My prediction, and I hope it will come true, is an 11-5 record and the Cowboys should make it into the playoff.

Now I've got to go stamp the poll book with the people who have voted early in the special Carrollton city council election so that we won't inadvertly let people vote more than once comes Tuesday. I have been an election judge beginning with the 2002 general election, so I have six elections under my belt already: 2002 general, 2004 primary, 2004 general, 2005 city council, 2006 primary, 2006 general.

I had the best quiet time this morning, praying, reading and memorizing scriptures. I thank God that I am learning more and more to be content regardless of the external circumstances. My blackberry address book got wiped out when I tried to synch with Outlook on Friday. There's problem with my Outlook too, can't access it from the desktop either. I can't email out of the blackberry on Friday and it's does seem I am getting email on it today either. But the browser on it still works.

I installed the VMware Server, then loaded the preconfigured Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The fun only got better when I installed Sun Solaris 10 64bit OS. Imagined you can run Sun Solaris 10 64bit on top of Windows XP 64bit, switching between them seemlessly, never having to worry about messing up your hard drive boot sector, rebooting to switch OS, .... And why stop at running Windows XP 64bit and Sun Solaris 10 64bit, add any combination of operating systems you like, Novell, BSD, .... Well, I looked but Apple OS 10 is not yet supported, at least not in this free version. The other drawback is that physical resources like hard disk and memory has to be divided up and shared between the various physical and virtual machine. The best is still not having to worry about security, spyware, viruses, ... while you are in the virtual machine.

Yep, I need a new hard drive, with all the digital pictures and this new virtualization, I put in an order on Newegg for a 500Gb SATA 7200RPM drive and an external USB 2.0 enclosure so I can reused an old IDE drive. I have 1.5Gb of memory, next would be an order for another 1Gb stick or maybe even two, when the price drops below the current $105 each stick.

I downloaded the VMWare Player and the Browser Appliance. What a briliant idea to be able to surf the web without being affected by virus and spyware! Check out plenty more here. I have been awared of virtualization for a long while but significant progress has been made and I think the technology is mature enough. I can't wait to play more with it.

Just heard a cool acronym, STOP, from pastor Rick Warren, author of the Purpose Driven Life, in his interview with Sean Hannity about the heat he's taking for inviting senator Barack Obama to speak at the AIDS conference at his Saddleback Church: (S)ave yourself for marriage, (T)rain men to respect women as equal partner, not sex objects, (O)ffer help through church's, (P)ledge yourself to one partner.