Introduction ---

Hsin-Mu, my son, entered the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pitttsburgh, PA, USA in 2004, and obtained the M. S. and Ph. D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering there in 2006 and 2010, respectively.

I and my wife, Chih-Hua, went to the USA to attend the commencement of his graduation from the PhD program on May 16, 2010. Besides, we had a trip around Pittsburgh and New York State during the period of May 13 to 18.

During the seven-day trip, we visited the CMU campus, downtown Pittsburgh, and several sightseeing spots nearby, including the famous Niagara Falls at the border of the USA and Canada.

    The trip was short, only seven days long, because I was still teaching in National Chiao Tung University and at the time after my trip several graduate students under my supervison were going to defend their theses to graduate so that I had to go back to Taiwan immediately after the trip.

    Though short in time, we still had a happy trip with a mood of great pleasure, half coming from Hsin-Mu's completion of his PhD study and half from what we saw during the trip!

(Picture above: my son, Hsin-Mu, at the graduation ceremony)