Alfred Kang

Drinking Beer

alfred — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:24:56 +0000

I had never seriously drunk beer before I came to Syrup. I had it sometimes, but I never aware what I was drinking most of the time. Beer was not my first choice if I had other beverages to drink. One day, it was a hot and sweaty afternoon in 2006, when Omino, who always called himself Daddy O and is the cheer leader in the office, gave me my first bottle of beer at Syrup. It was a Corona, which has an easy to swallow taste and suitable for most drinkers with most foods. And now, beer is my favorite drink anytime anywhere.

My beer drinking habits were influenced by several colleagues, including Thomas Poeser, Mike Tucker, and Victor Zumbreno. I went to different bars and even breweries with them around New York City. We tasted various kinds of beers. And often times they shared their stories and knowledge about beer with me. I really learned a lot from them.

To my understanding, beer can be simply categorized into Lager and Ale. Beer from Germany and actually the most popular beer, like Heineken and Budweiser are Lagers. And the rest are considered Ale. The main difference between these two beers is the way they are brewed. Lager yeast ferments at cooler temperatures and most of its ferments stay at bottom of the brewery bottle. Ale yeast ferments at a warmer temperature and its ferments live at the top of the brewery bottle. Of course, this is a very rough way to categorize them. Beer has lots of variations.

My favorite beer is Guinness, a stout from Dublin in Ireland. Some people say it tastes like black coffee. People who love it are simply just addicted to it, but people who don’t like it would never drink the second cup, or they may not even finish the first. There is a special way, which will make a huge difference, to pouring Guinness beer. If you have been to several Irish bars, you can easily distinguish if the bartender can pour it properly or not. I can drink 3-4 cups of Guinness a night.

Another kind of beer I like is called Trappist beer. It was brewed by Trappist monks. In the middle ages, some monasteries started to brew beer and drink beer. When monks were not allowed to eat during some periods, they drank beer as a source of nutrition. There are only 7 Trappist breweries in the world now. Because they brew beer in more natural methods, the flavors vary from time to time. Most drinkers including me are fascinated by Trappist beer’s in consistency; because it’s made by human hand, every bottle has its own unique flavor. It’s hard to imagine how many different kinds of beer there are in the human society. For example I can find more than 100 beers in a super market near my apartment. I think I am lucky enough to have the chance to dive into the world of beer. There are so many possibilities and joys you can find by tasting beer. But it is also easy to gain weight from beer. I have to watch out and make sure I drink the best beer out there every time, because I cannot waste any space in my stomach.

Brian Fu

alfred — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:24:08 +0000

“My momma always said, ”Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you”re gonna get.” – Forrest Gump”

About five years ago, with luggage, I came to New York alone. I thought I was alone, but actually not. The first year was tough, everything for me was challenging. Luckily, when I came back to Taiwan on my first summer vacation in 2004, one of my junior high school classmates told me that Brian and Daniel lived in New York, too. Brian and Daniel were both my junior high school classmates, and they are twin brothers. I had not met them since we graduated from school 15 years ago. They immigrated to United States right after we went to senior high school, and they went to senior high school and college here. They were like veterans in this society. They helped my often, especially Brian. I am not a person who will ask help from friends. I think people should live independently and be strong. That’’s the man. However, Brian is smart. He called or chatted with my on messenger often. By knowing what I was doing, he would came to help me. And he would strongly insist he needed to help me. For example, I didn”t have a very stable place to live when I just moved to New York. I had to move often and I was a poor students. No matter how tired he was (cause he wad already a programmer by then), he would drive his car and help me move. He was the life master to me. He showed me how to live in this city. He always think one steps ahead. When I told him I was going to try snowboarding, he would know that I might need some help on purchasing equipments and clothes. On Christmas or Thanksgiving time, he always invites me to have dinner with his family. That really warms my heart. He knew I was a very frugal students and would try to avoid any cost, he would invite me to trip with him and drive me to explore different places near the city.
Just like the quote I put in the very beginning, you never know what life is gonna bring to you. I never thought I will met Brian at New York after graduated from high school. I also never thought a friendship can last that long that crossed time and space. Some people are just like shooting stars passing your life; some are like fixed star which always be with you. I always try to reply to all of his helps through these years, but I seldom get a chance. Brian might not know that he really plays a very important role in my life, but I know he and his friendship is like the fixed star which stays there forever. This post is dedicated to him. Thank you, Brian.

Laurel Beversdorf

alfred — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:22:36 +0000

I have been in this country for almost 5 years. Sometimes I really regret that I didn”t spend enough time on learning English when I was young. I am not saying that I have troubles communicating with friends or colleagues, but it’’s just not good enough. So, I looked up every possible way to improve my English skills. I bought self-learning materials and books, and looked for different English tutors.
I have been started taken English class with Laurel Beversdorf since last November. Originally she taught Adriel, my colleague, then Adriel introduced her to me. Laurel works very hard. She prepares tons of material, pushes students to their limits, and always tries her best to help her students out. If anyone wants to learn English in New York City, she is the best choice. She not only teaches English, but also yoga classes. You can contact her through her website.
Basically, I take writing, pronunciation, and speaking class with her. If I write some posts on my Blog, she prints them out, and goes through every sentence with me. She cares about the big picture of the article more than the details. She makes certain what I am trying to express first, then comes to grammar details later on. Sometime an article will go through several reviews.
For speaking classes, she has tons of materials for students to learn from, and she prepares those materials very professionally. Recently, I was learning phrasal verbs with her. This is very helpful for ESL students. Phrasal verbs like, brush someone off, blow up, and answer to are heard often in daily conversation. But I was not 100% clear about what they meant before. She organized these phrasal verbs and made me practice them repeatedly, until I wouldn”t forget them anymore.
Finally, the most difficult class for me is pronunciation. She is a very, very hard teacher on this. I almost felt exhausted every time I took pronunciation class. During the class, she will demo the correct way to pronounce the word with her mouth, use very effective ways to make student’’s mouth produce the right sound. For example, she asked me to pull my tongue out with my fingers while speaking. In this way I can lossen my tongue to pronounce ”L” better.
I really thank her for the time she spends with me. I feel I have improved on every aspect for the past three months. One of my new year’’s resolutions this year is to perfect my English language skills. With Laurel Beversdorf, I am very confident that I will reach my goal. Here’s Laurel Beversdorf - the best English teacher in town.

Include or Require

alfred — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:21:23 +0000

Recently, Jayson, one of my colleague asked me what the difference was between include and require in PHP. I had no idea, so I discussed with Oskar, another back-end developer, and he was not clear about that as well. Until yesterday, I was reading some PHP documentation about Smarty, then I grasped the differences. Basically there are four kinds of include/require methods in PHP, require, require_once, include, and include_once. They are built for PHP pages to load other files. If the function comes with ”once” as a post-fix, that means the PHP interpreter will ensure the file you want to load only loaded once on that page. Finally, the biggest difference between include and require is when the loaded file cannot be found, require will throw an error, but include won’t.
It was until I had written this post that I realized the exact same information I happened upon on Smarty, was written on the PHP menu. I should”ve read the menu first.

http://us.php.net/require

http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.include.php

A Jouany to Taipei

alfred — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:19:41 +0000

Two weeks ago, I flew back to Taiwan, my sweet home, for my short five-day vacation to celebrate the Chinese New Year with my family. My younger sister got married last Oct, so this Chinese New Year was the first one we celebrated without my sister. For eastern-Asian people, family gathering and sharing their happiness during the Chinese New Year is one of the most important customs.
It’s not easy to do too many things in five days. The first day was New Year’s Eve. Most families worship their forefathers. My family did just that. We prepared lots of nice food to share with our forefathers spiritually. Also, we prepared some meaningful poetic sentences, wrote on red papers, then posted them on doors to bring some luck and newness to the New Year. Then finally, the family sits together to have a super luxurious New Year’s Eve dinner. Usually the elders would prepare some money, put it in the red envelopes and give them to younger kids to show their appreciation for the children’’s nice behaviors during the past year. That’s the most exiting time for kids. Although I am not a child anymore, my father insisted to give me the red envelope. That warmed my heart and also revealed my father still think I am a kid in his mind.

The first day of the New Year is a very busy day of this time. Everyone has to either call or visit tons of relatives and friends to share the happiness of the New Year. My father was pretty busy on the phone that day. I was very busy on another web 2.0 style. I spent a whole day on messenger chatting with my friends, cousins, and The second day is a big day. Married daughters come home to visit parents and brothers. This New Year was my younger sister’s first time doing this. Though she has visited my parents very often, I guess this was still a very meaningful moment for her. We went to a very nice restaurent with my sister and her husband. After lunch, they came to my parents house, and chatted a whole afternoon.
The third, forth, and fifth days were very plain. At third and forth days I visited some of my high school classmates and spent some time at book stores. For business and corporations, the fifth day is the day to begin work again. For me was time to fly back to New York.
This was a very short trip, I almost had no time to do anything besides participated in the family gathering. But I finished my most important task: to spend time with my parents. For me it was a heart-warming trip.

Zumba Dance Cardio

alfred — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:17:25 +0000

Alright, I admit it, after I starting to work at Syrup, I seldom did any exercise. When I was at school I used to play basketball a lot, go to the gym constantly, and walk often. So, after I graduated from school and worked for almost 3 years, I gained more than 30 lbs. That’’s pretty scary. Anyway, I realized I have to live healthier and lose some weight. So, I joined America’’s largest community — people on a diet.
My Strategy is simple — go exercise! I registered at a gym near by my apartment, and I go there at least three times a week. Actually, it’’s really not that easy to make myself work out hard every time. Sometimes men are just lazy. I go to the gym, I do some exercise, but I often take some easier equipment, like the exercise bike. My diet probably is not gonna be very efficient if I take these easy steps. Then, I realized this gym offers lots of classes, which easily force people who attend to work out fully for at least one hour. Therefore, for my first try, I took the “Zumba Dance Cardio”.
According to Wikipedia — Zumba is a fitness program inspired by Latin dance. That’’s what I found on the Internet before I went to the class. I am not a big fan of dance. Actually I”ve seldom danced in my entire life. But, you never know what life will bring you. So, I stepped into the classroom with a very open-minded perspective. There were not too many students in the classroom when I arrived. They had known each other for a while. And maybe because Astoria is little Greek, they spoke Greek. I have no idea what they were talking about. But all of them were very friendly and welcomed as I joined the class. Then, the teacher came. Her name was Sheena. She was extremely friendly as well. She seemed to have a lot of passion for dancing and always to have a smile on her face, which made a super beginner like me feel comfortable taking the class. Most dancw moves in Zumba are not too complicated. But to do them and to do them right are quiet different tasks. Dance beautifully is another story; it will require lots of practice and rescearch. Anyway, I had a good time in this class, sweat like hell, and felt as tired as a dog. I slept super well that night and had a very painful body next morning.

Here is a video showing what Zumba looks like:

Zumba, I learned from my class, isn”t exactly like this, but the music is very similar. I think this will be a good start for me. Hopefully, I will become healthier and thinner soon! People, let’’s go exercise!!

The Best Mate for Cold Weather

alfred — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:16:03 +0000

The weather has been getting colder and colder recently. For a man like me who was born and raised at Taiwan, a tropical country, living New York in the winter is really a painful experience.
However, the best way to fight off the cold is by eating something really warm. A “Hot Pot” is the food that comes first to most eastern Asians” mind. The theory behind making a hot pot is very simple: Bring a pot of water or soup to boil, and cook various kinds of food while eating. Styles of hot pot vary from area to area, according to people’’s eating habits and what food that area can be found. Wikipedia lists more than ten types of hot pots. Usually meat, seafood, bean curd, and vegetables are the main ingredients that would be cooked in the hot pot.
So, sometimes I cook hot pot at home, but more often I hang out and eat with friends. It’’s more fun to eat with friends. Seeing vapor rise out of the hot pot, eating, drinking, and talking to friends warm your body and your heart on cold winter night. Here are some places you can find hot pot in New York City:
Shanghai Tide Restaurent, 135-20 40th Rd. Flushing, NY 11354
Though it’’s a bit far from the city, this is the one I like best because they have 4 kinds of soups for customer to choose from. They also have unlimited food to cook with unlimited drinks, like beer. Meal costs 25 bucks per person, including the tip.
Emperor Japanese Tapas Shabu Restaurant, 96 Bowery, New York 10013
My friend recommend this one to me. I am probably gonna try it this Friday. They”ve even got a website: http://www.emperorshabu.com/index_en.html

I will add more restaurents to this list when I try more. Let’’s eat lots of hot pot this winter!!

Gaia framework

alfred — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:14:29 +0000

Recently, I came back to my old skill set, actionscript (my first title at Syrup was Flash Developer). I thought I was gonna build an application for people to vote on their favorite photos in Flash, but it turned out to be a HTML development eventually. I had been hearing about Gaia for a while and several of my friends mentioned this framework, and since the project’’s structure is kind of simple, I decided to try it out. Thanks to Vineet, my former superviser, who introduced Ruby on Rails to me two years ago, which contains a very powerful feature for rapid development–scaffolding. To my understanding, scaffolding structures low level construction jobs. In RoR, it takes care of basic data creating, retrieving, updating, and deleting, a.k.a CRUD in seconds. On the RoR site, they have a lot of amazing tutorials, including the very famous “Creating a weblog in 15 minutes“. So when I found out Gaia built their version of scaffolding, I was super excited and decided to give it a try. The setup is pretty simple: download it, install it, open the panel in Adobe Flash, and you are almost there. By clicking a button and selecting a folder, Gaia framework is ready. After that, you need to write a site.xml file in Gaia’’s format. You set up the site structure like a tree view composed by two major elements, page and asset. Then, the most exciting part, you click the ‘’scaffold” button on Gaia panel inside Flash, and boom!! You”ve got a website with navigation, transition, preloading, deeplink, and maybe optional SEO HTML pages all ready to go.
You don”t have to read too much documentation, and API is not too complicated. Also, the framework is in pure AS3, and saves in AS file, so you can read them, and maybe hack into them if you want. One of the features of this framework thatÃ‚Â could bring lots of flexibility is Events and Hijacking. With this, developers can control and halt every transitional procedure.
Another thing I think might be helpful about is it makes one fla file per page, which could make web development more efficient. By separating pages into different fla files, multiple developers can work on their own page under the same website without interfering with others.\r\n\r\nThere is one small pitfall: I think its code is not 100% perfect, because at some point I had to turn the as3 strict mode off in flash to make it compile. I don”t know where it went wrong, and I don”t wanna fix it either. But it’’s ok, it works totally fine with strict mode turned off.
I also notice their forum seems active, so users can probably find some answers quickly there if they have trouble. This framework tried a very different approach compared to other AS3 libs, but it really hit upon what basic infrastructure works flash development commonly needs. This could lead in a new direction for future flash development.

Hello World

alfred — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:13:25 +0000

…finally I have my personal blog here, let’’s see how it goes…. I hope this will be a good place for lots of memories in the future. I would like to share some thoughts about life, and all my explorations in RIA technologies. Front end technologies are something I love to do, though sometimes I feel life might be easier to become a back-end developer, but you never know…