I just filed our 2006 tax return. According TurboTax, Ju and I are paying more tax than 98% of all US tax payers. I guess much of it would go to pay for the “iRack”. In the meanwhile, as new immigrants, we have no say on how our tax money is used — cannot vote, cannot even travel aboard freely. In another day and age, wouldn’t this be a cause for a revolution? 
According to this blog post, Texas is the best place to work for software developers. On average, software developers in Austin are paid $84,460 a year, ranking #9 in major US cities. Adjusted for cost-of-living, it goes up to $93,844 a year, ranking #2 among US cities. In fact, after adjusted for cost of living, 6 out of the 10 highest paying cities are in Texas.
Top 10 Cities for Salary Adjusted for Cost of Living (Software Developers)
1 Houston $ 102,908 2 Austin $ 93,844 3 Fort Worth $ 91,614 4 Arlington $ 91,614 5 El Paso $ 85,741 6 Charlotte $ 85,477 7 Dallas $ 84,489 8 Jacksonville $ 81,928 9 Colorado Springs $ 81,850 10 Atlanta $ 80,565
Top 10 Cities for Raw Average Salary (Software Developers)
1 San Jose $ 99,250 2 San Francisco $ 92,570 3 Oakland $ 92,570 4 Houston $ 89,530 5 New York $ 89,370 6 Boston $ 87,540 7 Balitimore $ 86,110 8 San Diego $ 85,280 9 Austin $ 84,460 10 Fresno $ 83,840
Speaking of cost of living, can we now compare cities in India and China? 
We have a pair of pear trees in our front yard. They are blooming in full force at this time of the year. Ju took some pictures today.
Tree and house:
The two trees in our front yard:
Flowers closeup:
Borat is one of the most outragous, offensive, and yet hilarious movie I have seen. But I always thought that scenes in the movies were “staged” by actors — very much like the fake reality show “The Office”.
Well, I was wrong. According to this Salon story (you need to watch a short ads to get in), most of the Borat scenes are shot with *real people* who did not know it was a prank. Even the scene in the rodeo was shot with a real rodeo! You can read people’s reactions from the article. It is even more hilarious than I thought!
We went to watch the move “The Prestige” today (Pre-order DVD). Very good movie. It is part scifi, part mystery, and part drama. The fast switching between threads and the back-and-forth timeline keep the audience on the edge all the time. (Remember, this is from the director who brought us Momento). This is simply excellent story telling. And there is a surprise ending where the magic is revealed and the real life begins — “the prestige” — so to speak.
The real world rivalry between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison presented in the SciFi context is just hilarious.
Anyway, I like it a lot. If you are geek, you probably would too. Go watch it.
We took a 5-week beginner’s tennis class from the local community college. It was a lot of fun. But what’s impressed us most was our instructor. He is 89 years old and still very much active in the tennis court! He started playing in the 30’s. I wonder what would we be like in the 2060’s? What would the world be like then?
Have not blogged for a very long time! We went to Lockhart this weekend for some really great Texas BBQ, camping in the woods, and a nice round of golf in the cool morning breeze. Checkout the pictures here.
Our tent on the campground
Golf swing
Golf putt
Ju’s playing Golf
We put on holiday lights both inside and outside of our house. Here are some pictures:
The icicle lights on the outside of our house
Lights on our stairway
Our colorful xmas tree and the fireplace
Okay, not really Reindeer. But it is a big deer nevertheless! The picture is taken from my study in the morning.
Here are some pictures of our new house and our new Prius parked in front of it.
