Moving to WordPress.com

New Address:

http://calvin998.wordpress.com/

After much consideration and comparison, I decided to move to WordPress.com for my personal blog hosting. That was a difficult decision and I hope Blogger may have the features I like in the future.

What's good about WordPress.com is that:

• more powerful editing option. Image formating is more convinient.
• updated images saved in same blog, instead of in picasaweb.
• import and export tools so it makes it easy to move your blog to and from this hosting, and make local backup.

Even blogger is better than WordPress.com at following, overall WorkPress.com still meet my needs better:

• allow customize CSS (well, I'm OK with the current theme I have there. Acceptable.)
  
• allow Google adsense (my personal space won't generate much traffic anyway, and I don't want my site looks too commercial).
• support email to blog (this will really be a loss for me. But since WordPress.com is not blocked in my company network, it's still OK).

I still leave my joke collection blog here. Email to blog is really convenient, as I can archive those funny stories with minimum efforts. Some of the Blogger's editing interface is really cool.

Stock Wash Sales

I have "paper" loss on some stocks. At the end of the year, I want to sell some of them to offset the short gain I have from MSFT for the tax benefit. But I feel those stock will come back eventually and I plan to buy it back right away. Can I do it? Hmmm, IRA has a rule for it already - Wash Sales.

According to IRA Pub 550 Investment Income and Expenses, if you sell at a loss and have bought shares within 31 days before or after the sale date, it is a wash sale and you can't claim the loss. Instead, the amount of loss is added to the basis of the shares you bought (this even adds more complexity when you fill tax return).

But, the wash sale rules really only apply when the transactions bridge two tax years. You can trade all you want throughout the year, but if you close out your position prior to the end of the tax year and stay out for the required period of time, the wash sale issues are really not important. But, if you hold on to just one little share into the new tax year, you can look forward to making a bunch of wash sale computations. You'll get the benefit of the loss(es) when you sell the stock.

Wait, what if I have my wife to buy the stock in a separate brokerage account and I sell it from my account? (Am I smart?) IRA says: no no, I have that covered also! That doesn't work.

These sites have a few articles explaining these rule in detail:

http://www.fairmark.com/capgain/wash/
http://www.smartmoney.com/tax/capital/index.cfm?story=washrules

Or check out IRA pub 550: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p550.pdf

Guest Bathroom 楼下的卫生间

This bathroom is quite small. But since it's at the entrance and at the first floor where the beautiful hardwood is at, we want it to be formal, shining and elegant. Due to its small window, this room doesn't have enough light during the daytime. So we also want it to be lightened up a little bit more.

The original white cabinet was kept but the old counter top was replaced by this beautiful "black galaxy" granite. We paid about extra $200 to custom make this L shape and the OG border, versus the regular round border (called bull's nose). The backsplash also has OG border. We also added a soap dispenser at the counter top. The white soap tray here is more for decorative purpose.

The mirror was also framed - but if I would do it again I would stain it instead of painting it in solid white.

As far as the flooring, we chose light cream color marble, and framed it with small green onyxe stones. The marble we bought were standard 12x12 inch. Since the frame is too small, we had the contractor to cut in to 6x6. The frame border and the diamond inserts in the center were from 3 1x1 onyxe sheets - this is a very economic way to make borders. A $18 sheet can be cut to at least 5 1-foot borders.

The wall color is "Green Tea" (BEHR) from Home Depot. When we just opened the paint can it looked too light. But after the paint is dry it's darker and is exactly what we wanted.

All the work was done by the contractor, except the design and the paint.

Mural in upstairs 楼上的壁画

Completed Date: 10/29/2007

I came across some wall murals at http://www.swdecorating.com when I was shopping for wall paper borders. The price is much cheaper ($90) than I thought and the size matches the open space we have on upstairs wall. We finally got the MEDITERRANEAN ARCH.

But putting it up is quite a challenge - especially the space over the lower stairs. I used 4 2x4 and a ladder to set up a work platform. I wrapped the ladder shoes otherwise it will leave black rubber mark on the wall.

The wall mural consists of 8 pieces. I measured and cut first first. Rena helped me to put it up. It's easier than we thought even this is our first time with wall paper. No bubbles at all. It's paper - not vinyl. There were also vinyl versions but cost about $600+. The paste (powder) came with the package and the instruction is very clear. I just used a wallpaper smoother bought from Lowes ($2) and that's all the tools I used.



We decided to also cover the door to have the best visual result. Besides, we like the chair to be in the picture very much - it helps to bring the view to real life and the empty chair is very inviting. However, covering the door took much longer time than we estimated. Since the door is of raised panel style, we had to cover it first with hard paper.

The whole thing was done after 1 am. We left the baby at the babysitter's house.

Naturally, this spot became the choice of the background for group pictures.

Thanksgiving gathering with Ying and Xiaomei's family.

Finally settled on a blog site

Finally, I settled at Google's blog site as my personal site. It's easy to use and, as Google services always are, has clean UI. It also supports multiple blogs for same account. And, since it's offered by Google, I hope it will get "preferred" treatment in google search. :-)

In my few weeks, I will start blogging our remodel projects. Stay tuned.