The first picture is a Canadian pirate who wants to say “Happy Canada Day everybody!!!”

The second picture is a father and his son preparing Canada Day celebration. So… are you ready kid?

And here is the last picture… Canadian girls are beautiful, aren’t they?

• Health care system in Canada is free.
• 10 months waiting to get appointment with surgeon to get x-ray.
• 18 months waiting to get appointment for surgery.
• If you want to get in front of the line, work as volunteer for the communities.

PS: When I got a dermatofibroma surgery in Canada last year, I had also to wait about 6 months. First, I had to make appointment with dermatologist, which took 2 months. Then, I need to make appointment with the surgeon, which took another 2 months. Finally, I had to wait for the surgery, which took 2 months again. Anyway, this is what you get for free service.

At the beginning of this month, NASDAQ announced that now they provide real-time stock quotes to Google (and some other media companies). Three weeks later, New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) also announced that now they provide real-time stock quotes to Google (and CNBC). Real-time stock quotes used to be quite expensive to subscribe. The standard stock quotes are normally 15 - 20 minutes delay.

Today, I am going to share how to use Google Finance function to display stock quotes on Google Docs. Since both NYSE and NASDAQ provide real-time stock quote, we can now create a document on Google Docs that shows real-time stock price. See also example of my stocks basket above.

How can we do that? It’s pretty straightforward.

• Create a new spreadsheet on Google Docs.
• Type in ‘=GoogleFinance("‘ followed by the stock ticker. For example, you can type ‘=GoogleFinance"GOOG")‘ to display the real-time stock price of Google.

(Picture is from Google Finance.)

It’s a doom day!

Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped to its lowest level since 2006. As I predicted last week, it finally dropped below 11,500. I should have written my prediction on this blog last week and become an "instant Wall Street analyst"… just kidding.

According to Wall Street Journal, it is the worst June since Great Depression.

(Picture is from stock.xchng.)

It’s no secret any more that after quitting Nokia, I work for Symbian as subcontractor (external employee). Yesterday, Nokia announced that they acquire Symbian. The press release indicates that most Symbian’s internal employees will become Nokia’s employees. A few of them will be transferred to a new foundation that was also announced yesterday, Symbian Foundation.

What is going to happen to me then? Will I lose my job? Will I work as subcontractor for Nokia? I don’t know. I am still digesting the announcement until today. Worse, it seems most people have no idea what’s going to happen.

PS: I am actually quite sad to see the end of Yahoo! has to be like this. They used to be a very good company. They started one of the first search engines in the world. They were one of the most successful IPO companies in the dot-com era. They have made thousands of people become so rich. To be honest, I used to be a fan of Jerry Yang.

Well good luck for Jerry Yang and co.

(Picture is from Wikipedia.)

I am not sure what is happening to me. I am consuming tylenol almost every day now. For those who don’t know, tylenol is a well-known North American brand for pain-reliever drug.

Every morning (or afternoon), I have very bad headache. I have to take tylenol; otherwise I won’t be able to do anything. That’s why, I bring tylenol to the office every day.

Why am I getting this problem? No idea… It’s just started recently. At the beginning, it happened once every a couple of days. Now, it happens almost every day.

Is it because of stress? Is it because of the stock market? I wish I knew the answer.

I am just helping her taking pictures. Unfortunately, my tripod is now broken, so these pictures were taken with broken tripod. If you have comment about her cakes, I’ll pass it to her.

Yes… I still have 234 emails to read. Not sure what I have done recently so that my emails are keep accumulating in my inbox. I am going to spend this weekend to read all of them. Wish me luck…

Some of you may be wondering why the h*** I have so many emails in my inbox. Am I that busy? Most probably. First of all, I hardly checked my email during my last trip to Indonesia. After that, I had "job-transition". As you may know, I just quit my job at Nokia and started another new job. Another thing that also made me busy was my "part-time job" as a stock trader. Although many people say that stock trader is a dream job, it is actually an exhausting job.

I have just joined a group on Flickr, called Indonesian Foods. It really makes me hungry. The problem is: it’s not easy to find Indonesian food in Vancouver. Meanwhile, I and my wife are now good cookers. For now, we can only enjoy the pictures on Flickr.

I’ve been living overseas for almost 8 years now. One thing that I always miss from my home country is food. Each time, we go back to Indonesia, we always spend our time looking for yummy food there.