Cancun trip: Wind surfing lessons

The resort did offer free short lessons in windsurfing and sailing on catamaran. Unfortunately, it's pretty windy throughout our stay except one day. They also only have gears with large sails that is difficult to beginners.

I took on the windsurfing despite these problems. In the first day, after a short on the beach lesson, I made the mistake that drifting to deeper water and ended up about 100 meters from shoreline. In this picture, I'm the small dot on the left of the peer.



Since I hadn't master the basics on getting up the sail from water by myself in strong wind, they ended up having to rescure me using a moto boat.

The Los Angeles Times vs. the Tribune

Personally, I'd like to see the Times to maintain its excellence in journalism. This may sound like the Time's (editors and staff) current position to the downsizing request from the Tribune. However, we somehow need to face that this is a business decision. No matter who's going to run this newspaper in the future, as long as it will be ran as a for-profit organization, they will be facing the cost-profit issue again in a few years.

At the current age of online media, how to profit from quality in journalism remains a challenge for many newspapers. Will online ads revenue be able to reimburse the profit loss from declining sales of paper copies? Will targeted ads such as those run in Google improve the advertising rate?

Let's hope the best.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

It's a really good show with Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford, two of my most favorite TV actors. I also like the West Wing alumni Timothy Busfield as Cal Shanley. The best part of the show is its seriousness on politics, on culture while it's also very funny at the same time. It's all Aaron Sorkin.

I was watching episode 6: the Wrap party today and was touched many times. However, the most memorable part is when Simon Stiles (D. L. Hughley) confessed to Matt (Matthew Perry) that "I had to use every chance I got to drag anyone I can out of there (south central) or I deserve to be sent back".

Cancun Day Two

The Moon Palace Resorts is very nice, including the facilities, location, and staff. Unfortunately the check-in efficiency is very low. It took almost 15-20 minutes for each guest to check-in. They need make copies of all the credit cards, passports, tourist cards, etc.

We got a room in the far end of the Nizuc section. About 1/4 mile from the Nizuc lobby and a full mile from the Sunrise (main) lobby. It has a partial ocean view, which is very nice. The floor is in marble. A little cold but not slippery as mentioned by someone in Tripadvisors. It's nice they provide the slippers. I love the all marble separate shower. It's large and had a step to sit on. The in suite Jacuzzi is just okay. A little dirty at first. Since the outside pool is so nice and there are a couple of super size Jacuzzi by the poor, I guess there's not many people is using the ones inside the room. Plasma TV is fine, but not too much program. Well, nobody's here to watch TV. It does have plenty of soccer either from Mexico or from Europe.

Eelection Day

This might be the Democrats' best chance to regain the house. They even have the hope to take the Senate along.

Cancun Day One

The flight felt much shorter than it was with the new on-flight entertainment system that you can choose different movies, TV shows, and even your own music play list from a rather limited selection. This is the first time I use such a system that you can pause and replay shows for each individual passenger. It even has a USB port for playing for own mp3 collections.


I watched "Click" for the trip. It's just a so-so movie with an old story line that some guy (Adam Sandler) regretted (and successfully re-lived it the right way) his life choices. It's all about Adam Sandler himself. While Kate Beckindale is very sexy, that's about all she does in this movie.





The airport was very crowed. The immigration and customs were pretty efficient and fast. When getting out, we were facing a "you've-been-warned" crowd that trying to grab you to their bus/cab/etc. However, the two people we talked to did point us to the right direction where our pre-arranged drivers were waiting for us.