wendyu

Mother's day at distillery district

Fallingwater

Zoey at New York Botanical Garden

May 30, 2009
Friday, we paid a visit to the ROM and saw "Light & Stone: Gems from the Collection of Michael Scott".
Saturday, we biked from Main & Danforth to Bestview Park at Steeles and back. Amazing how well connected Toronto is by bike trails. Indeed city in a park, as opposed to park in a city.
May 26, 2009
Sunday, back in Toronto. For our evening walk, we jumped a few fences, trespassed a catholic school and somehow ended up in Bestview Park.
Tuesday, new project in New York.
May 23, 2009
Tuesday, drove from Denver to Estes Park. Beautiful town! Short afternoon hike to Mills lake. You know you are traversing a heavily used trail when the squirrels are begging for food. Met a very nice volunteer at the visitor center, a retired doctor from Minneapolis with fond memories of Chinese food in Toronto. He warned us against snow covered slopes. I decided to test it out. Yes, it is indeed possible to slide into rapids.
Wednesday, attempted to hike to Flat Top Mountain. Only encountered one person on our journey. Carl's rapid response to hail stones was hilarious. We were very close when thunder approached and we sprinted back to the tree line.
Thursday, attempted to hike to Chasm Lake. We did not get very close but we did get very lost. Almost hiked up Mount Lady Washington instead. Heavy fog to the extent that we had to debate whether there is a sign in front of us or not.
Friday, Trail Ridge Road is open! Insane views of glacia influenced landscapes straight out of a geography text book. Grand Lake is much smaller than Estes Park but also lovely. On the way back, I saw mountain goats sprinting between trees and asked Carl to stop the car. He got some cute pictures.
Saturday, last hike to Lake of Glass.
May 18, 2009
Monday, presented at Life Spring Meeting with Xiaohong and Frank. SOA has posted a copy of the handout.
SinoCast: Insurers in China are attaching more importance to bancassurance channel and participating insurance products become the variety on which both insurers and banks pay most attention. The premium revenue insurers gained via bancassurance channel in the country accounted for about 50 percent of the total they obtained in the nation's life insurance sector last year.
May 16, 2009
China Daily: The CIRC, or China's top insurance regulator, would launch pilot programs in Shanghai concerning insurance fund usage, said commission chairman Wu Dingfu. "We will initiate more trial insurance policies in Shanghai in preparation for future application on a national scale," Wu said. At present, the CIRC is mulling over a plan to introduce a new endowment insurance type to Shanghai residents that collect the premium before income tax is deducted.
May 15, 2009
Wednesday, we visited york quay gallery and viewed ELEGY FOR A STOLEN LAND and Close Distance, also part of the contact photography festival. Urban images from andrea mihai is particularly memorable.
Friday, finally caught Jenny on one of her visits back home. We strolled over to Soma and tried various truffles. Balsamic vinegar is still my fav!
May 12, 2009
After the Tang incident, my dad has been great about forwarding greensheets from financial advisors. Today, he sent me one for O'Leary Canadian Income Opportunities Fund. My interpretation is that investors have this great "opportunity" to pay 2% management fee on a "Canadian" mostly fixed "income" fund managed by Stanton Asset Management, which is mostly known for investing in global equity. I always thought that O'Leary collecting children's software companies and selling them to Mattell was more about marketing than entrepreneurship. Here we go again.
P dot S dot: Vendy's very old fashioned definition of entrepreneurship involves developing new business to meet previously unmet needs and Vendy's very old fashioned definition of unmet needs does not include the need of large organizations to buy small startups in an attempt to appear innovative.
May 10, 2009
Saturday, hiked Dufferin Quarry Trail. Orange rain coat kept me dry. Could not keep up with cute doggies. Admired huge trilliums, white, pink and red. Saved from killer mosquito.
Sunday AM: Cheered Zev on at km 22 and 29 with banana and green bunnies. Sauga marathon route is so serene.
Sunday PM: Celebrated mother's day at distillery district. We saw Donald Weber's "drunken bride, Russia unveiled", a part of the contact photography festival.
NYTimes: In an attempt to get the flavors of a culture, I often turn to novels like “In the Skin of a Lion,” by Michael Ondaatje, which framed how I saw Toronto, or “The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy” by Anthony Burgess, which informed my sense of Malaysia’s multicultural mix.
Vendy does this too!
Listening: Soulmate by Natasha Bedingfield
May 6, 2009
IPE.com: By managing the assets of the policy such that, at all times, enough money remains available to buy a zero-coupon bond that grows to the amount of the guaranteed principal, T&D was able to alleviate the risk to insurers and topped the rankings for collecting new VA assets in the first half of 2008 raising JPY 320bln in 6 months. The constant proportion portfolio insurance (CPPI) mechanism by which the product was managed however has shown its drawbacks: with rapidly falling markets the fund managers were forced to sell out of the risky asset part of the portfolio and buy into the zero-coupon bond necessary to protect the principal at maturity causing a so-called cash-out where no money is left to invest in equity markets and the product is left only holding the zero-coupon. Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, the main distributor of this VA policy, has subsequently announced ceasing the sale of this product.
May 5, 2009
Bought new waterproof hiking shoes from Europe Bound. Sipped on Mayan hot chocolate and Italian hazelnut chocolate at Soma. Received candied lemon and green tangerine chocolate, as well as caramel-filled fig. Saw Gomarra at Carlton Theatre. Lovely in a completely hopeless sort of way. I wonder how I would be if I were born into that world. To attempt to defy it or daydream into a separate reality?
Business Wire: Putnam Investments announced today that its President and Chief Executive Officer Robert L. Reynolds will outline a sweeping retirement reform agenda in Washington, D.C. this afternoon before an audience of the nation’s 401(k) industry leaders, retirement plan sponsors and mutual fund executives.
* Creating a new national insurance charter, a national insurance regulator, and a fund to back up lifetime income guarantees from insurers. The fund would be similar to that which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation maintains to protect bank deposits.
* Requiring that workplace savings plans build in an option to secure a “retirement paycheck,” enabling any participant to choose an assured lifetime income option in the form of annuities or other insured, non-annuity income streams.
* Providing additional tax incentives to employees who invest in protected lifetime income products. Since converting life savings into lifelong income is even more challenging than accumulating a nest egg in the first place, the decision to give up some control of assets should be rewarded.
May 2, 2009
Saturday, hiked Trout Hollow Trail. Jumping from high places and demanding to be caught.
Sunday, Tanya is back from India. We walked from her place in the Beach to Le Pain in Yorkville just like we used to. We shared delish veggie food and I indulged in espresso tart, which fuelled the walk back. So many stories to share.
CFO Mag: "Participants who rely on date alone to choose a fund can have much more exposure to market volatility than they realize," says Tom Idzorek, chief investment officer and director of research at Ibbotson Associates, a Morningstar subsidiary. Indeed, the percentage of equities in 2010 target-date funds ranges from 14% to 65%. // Last year's wake-up call seems unlikely to dent target-date funds' popularity. Almost 80% of 401(k) plans offer them, attracting contributions from 37% of their participants; and 53% of the employers who don't yet offer them will do so this year, according to Hewitt Associates. // In 2006, the Department of Labor blessed the funds as one of three 401(k) qualified default investment alternatives (QDIAs). Plan sponsors are liable for prudently choosing and monitoring QDIAs, and for communicating their risks to participants who are defaulted into them, but they avoid liability for investment results.
May 1, 2009
Colin Devine: I always like hearing from the actuaries.
April 29, 2009

Random walk through UT campus. Sushi at Shogun. The closing of subway doors could not prevent magic at Yonge and Bloor.
Rod Mcqueen: “This could have been solved with the stroke of a pen. The number of technical solutions to this are legion. But we dealt with a particularly entrenched regulator who was unwilling to make compromises that would have made life a little easier for us,” D’Alessandro told me during one of my many interviews with him for the book. // For reasons OSFI has not explained, the regulator treated pension funds far differently than insurance companies. “Our problem is not credit exposure to any of the instruments that are causing everybody else problems. Our problem is that we’ve sold people pension plans. The value of equities collapsed 50 percent in the space of two months. There’s a gap between the assets you gave us to manage for you and their value today. That’s where the problem lies. The reserving that has to be done with respect to that shortfall is astronomical. If it was a sponsored pension plan like IBM or DuPont with a funding deficit, we would have to set aside $660 million dollars. We have to set aside $11 billion,” said D’Alessandro.
April 26, 2009
Pretended to be princess for a day. Ate candy wrapper and demanded to be carried up a steep slope.
April 25, 2009
Friday, organized zpecial spring fling happy hour at work with Sarah and Saba.
Saturday AM: Met up with Zev at Rock Oasis. Going got tough. Vendy tried to get going.
Saturday PM: Brunched with Denise, who rushed to view a well priced condo. Browsed the Made show at Gladstone with Stephen. Purchased lovely paper airplanes from Kid Icarus.
Every time I hear Icarus now, I think of 120 North LaSalle. Only in Chicago do you find such clear signage in the center of the financial district.
April 22, 2009

Caught Madness of the square at Factory theatre. Impressive characterization. Evocative use of bicycle bells and loud speakers.
Cute quote. There will not be a war but a fight for peace will destroy everything.
Deiter's Give Peace a Chance is coming to Toronto.
Passage from Wikipedia from Grapefruit by Yoko Ono:
Think that snow is falling. Think that snow is falling
everywhere all the time. When you talk with a person, think
that snow is falling between you and on the person.
Stop conversing when you think the person is covered by snow.
April 19, 2009
Longawaited. Fallingwater.
April 18, 2009
I was blown away by the Carnegie Museum of Art: the spirited Fernando Romero show, the vivacious Matsubara exhibit (better than the one at the ROM), and the expansive Opera for a Small Room by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. Flower displays complementing various pieces scatter throughout the space. I especially like the one that features a "circle in a square" vase and horizontal lilies. I didn't even realize that they own Signac's Place des Lices, St. Tropez, which I fell in love with in grade eight. I admired Katz's Autumn and possibly felt something standing in front of Rothko's Yellow and Blue.
WSJ: Insurer Allstate Corp. has been asked by the New York Insurance Department to immediately report its participation in "unregulated insurance markets," along with its knowledge of any insurance companies that conducted unregulated writing of credit-default swaps. The move follows a comment made by Allstate Chief Executive Tom Wilson in an opinion article in Thursday's New York Times in which he said Allstate played "only a small role in unregulated insurance markets. . . . The insurance companies that wrote credit default swaps were happy not to be regulated." State insurance superintendent Eric R. Dinallo said it is illegal for an insurance company to write a credit-default swap unless approved by the state insurance regulator under limited conditions.
April 17, 2009
Cute story about Russian nationalism. All the countries in the world agreed to each write a book about elephants. The Americans wrote "Elephant in business". The French wrote "Elephant and culture". The Chinese wrote "Elephant population growth". The Russians wrote "Russia is the motherland of all elephants".
April 15, 2009
Adventureland was sweet but the girl is not messed up in a way that I can relate to. To make myself feel better, I am going to shop at michelgondry.com. The 2007 disasterology calendar will be date accurate again in 2018!
April 12, 2009
W, admiring a waterfall: I would love to be a drop of water. The journey must be marvelous.
A: Also very crowded.
I traded a piece of lettuce for white tuna :) :) :)
April 11, 2009
Traditional brunch with Brish/Niyanta (Briyanta?) and family. We also watched Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. I love Kajol!
Brish's little sis is participating in a play. The moral of the story was delivered by Hannah Montana: always listen to your parents. The thought reminded me of a shopping excursion with my mum. As we strolled through the bakery section, we spotted another mother daughter combination: the little girl demanded chocolate bagels and the mother explained that there are no chocolate bagels. Soon enough, the little girl wailed "Why why why" and the mother responded "Because I said so". My mum turned to me and said "I didn't realize that was an acceptable response". I miss those wonder years.
April 10, 2009
FT: ING has not said exactly which operations are for sale, though it said large parts of the US insurance business were now seen as “non-core” and under review as part of a “fundamental shift in risk profile”. // Loss-making life insurance businesses in Japan and China are also likely to go, as may ING’s Australian assets which include ING Direct Australia, an arm of its online bank.
April 8, 2009

Saw Weiner's "Other side of a cul de sac" at Powerplant. Clever but I find it difficult to appreciate art in the form of writing on the wall. In block letters. My gut instinct is: propaganda. Thoroughly enjoyed Carey Young's "counter offer". "Product recall" finds her recalling slogans associated with global brands. She is trained to sound radical in "I AM a revolutionary". I called the call center agent from "The representative"; he is interested in photography; he is working at a call center because his deli business failed; I asked him why he thought it failed.
WSJ: More than 70% of financial advisers in a recent survey said they were concerned about the risks insurers have taken on with guaranteed-minimum variable annuities -- and nearly a third said they doubted the insurers themselves understood those risks.
April 5, 2009
Niagara gorge. The last remnants of winter collapse into the river. A million dancing rainbows.
NYTimes: Mr. Summers, the former Treasury secretary and Harvard president who is now the chief economic adviser to President Obama, earned nearly $5.2 million in just the last of his two years at one of the world’s largest funds, according to financial records released Friday by the White House. Impressive as that might sound, it is all the more considering that Mr. Summers worked there just one day a week.
April 4, 2009
Wednesday, muddy run along Taylor Creek.
Thursday, another game of tennis.
Friday, presented my Cali project during insurance flip-through. Shared VBA training with Yannik and RamyF.
10 weeks later. Hiding my match and lava profiles because I think I may have found something. Maybe. Dates 9/10/11/... to be reflected upon in due time.