Star Wars Stamps

I went to the post office to send a mail and picked up some stamps. I need stamps to send in my car insurance payment.

When asked for a pack of 20, the post lady asked me whether I had a particular choice. Instinctively I said no, but in a flash I asked "Do you have anything pretty?" She said anything under the glass and inside the book. The first thing that caught my eyes was a pack of Season's knits with lovely paintings of X'mas tree and snowman as if they are knits. Then she showed me an opened book resting on the desk, and it was Yoda all over... Man... they have got a few cool Star Wars stamp sets, and one of them is so cool that I won't be wanting to use them. Since they cost the same as the regular American Flag stamps (the face value of 41 cents a piece), there is no reason to pick anything but Master Yoda.

Here is the link to close-ups of all the Star Wars Stamps.

I though I would use these stamps when I was inside the post office. Now I have decided to keep them and get the Million Falcon and the Clone Troopers altogether as collectibles.

Bradley Palmer State Park

We have a very nice day today. Sunny, cool (~ 14 degC) without a cloud in the sky. Sylvin asked whether Sophie and I wanted to have a walk in Bradley Palmer State Park. So three of us headed off to the Park at two.

I have never been to this park although it is only 10 minutes' drive from our home. It turns out to be a small park and covered with a web of unpathed walking trails. We saw people biking and riding horses. It is actually a perfect place for horse back-riding and there are a couple of open-field and a few riding trails with obstacles for horses.


We didn't know there were plenty of walnut trees in the park until we picked up the green fruits all over the ground. I picked up a small rock and cracked open one of them against a rock (looked like a stone-age human) and tasted a small bite. It was so bitter but you can tell it was walnut. They were obviously still too green.

We downloaded and printed out the trail map and took the trails randomly. We spent less than 2 hours to cover 2/3 of the park. Not much of scenic view but in this time of the year the foliage makes the trails pleasant looking. More of the pictures are available at my picasa web album.

No Sex Since 1955

A crusty old Marine Sergeant Major found himself at a gala event hosted by a local liberal arts college. There was no shortage of extremely young idealistic ladies in attendance, one of whom approached the Sergeant Major for conversation.
"Excuse me, Sergeant Major, but you seem to be a very serious man. Is something bothering you?"
"Negative, ma'am. Just serious by nature."
The young lady looked at his awards and decorations and said, "It looks like you have seen a lot of action."
"Yes, ma'am, a lot of action."
The young lady, tiring of trying to start up a conversation, said, "You know, you should lighten up a little. Relax and enjoy yourself."
The Sergeant Major just stared at her in his serious manner.
Finally the young lady said, "You know, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but when is the last time you had sex?"
"1955, ma'am."
"Well, there you are! You really need to chill out and quit taking everything so seriously! I mean, no sex since 1955?!" She took his hand and led him to a private room where she proceeded to "relax" him several times.
Afterwards, panting for breath, she leaned against his bare chest and said, "Wow, you sure didn't forget much since 1955!"
The Sergeant Major, glancing at his watch, said in his serious voice, "I hope not, it's only 2130 now."

From http://rootsgpk.blogspot.com/

How boys are born

Apparently it is a genetic thing... boys are born this way...







From http://rootsgpk.blogspot.com/

Canon P

Last night we had a party at Jerome's home for Sophie's birthday, my return and Jerome's house warming. George brought along his latest toy, a 1961 Canon P rangefinder camera. Geez, it is a piece of art. Mechanical shutter, mechanical film advance. Mechanical everything. He has added a 28 mm wide-angle lens and thus a hot-shoes a 28 mm view finder on top of the camera. And until we talked about taking picture I learned that he used to take a lot of black and whites, and he was actually planning to put a roll of B&W into the camera after he finished that roll of color. I am thinking to get a rangefinder myself and take some real photos.


p.s. Jerome's home is huge. A pool table in the drawing room and a pingpong table next to the kitchen. Not to mention the huge sitting room that houses 2 three-seaters and 2 > 30" TV sets, and a separate reading room. It was a great party and I played pool and pingpong a lot along with downing half dozen of beer.

Black & White Photography

I have bought a book about manipulating color photos into B&Ws from Taiwan. I meant to look for one because I am getting interested in B&Ws, since you can remove the color details that sometimes maybe distracting and you can put more emphasis onto the main theme.

I started playing around with the "Channel Mixer" in monochrome on a picture I took right outside NEB, where I can spot the open field of Appleton Farm on their hay harvests.

This is the original (I have cropped the picture to remove the fence at the bottom of the picture.)


and here I mixed the channels with more emphasis on the red;


and in this picture I added more green.


This is a picture I took in San Diego last year:


Now I keep red 100% but put both green and blue to -6%:


My brother's having my hat.

Stephen Lewontin

We are having a small exhibit of the work of Stephen Lewontin at work. He used to be a photo journalist (still is?) and starts painting using pastel lately.

As quoted from his web page "I'm currently working on a series of small pastels of imagined people in imagined landscapes. I like to think of these as illustrations for a story that I haven't gotten around to writing yet."

Pastel gives a softness to imagine, but his use of color gives the pictures lives.

All images © 2006-2007 Stephen Lewontin

Wife Quotes

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.
Sacha Guitry

After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together.
Hemant Joshi

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Socrates

I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me.
Anonymous

"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."
Henny Youngman

"There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage."
James Holt McGavran

"I've had bad luck with both my wives. The first one left me, and the second one didn't."
Patrick Murray

Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming
1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it,
2. Whenever you're right, shut up.
Nash

The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once...
Anonymous

You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to.
Henny Youngman

My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
Rodney Dangerfield

A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Wife wanted". Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: "You can have mine."
Anonymous

First Guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!"
Second Guy: "You're lucky, mine's still alive."

Adapted from http://rootsgpk.blogspot.com/

Conway, NH

I joined the company hiking trip today. It was the first hiking trip even organized, ~60 people turned up and we took 2 chartered bus for 2 and a half hours, all the way to North Conway, NH to climb the 3500 ft Mt. Chocorua (we started out at 1200 ft though).

The hike was 3.5 miles one-way, 7 miles round-trip with an elevation of 2300 ft. It took us 2 and a half hour to go up the summit. The weather was a bit chilly, ~ 12 degC at the trail head and probably ~5 degC up at the summit. The trail started with woods with a rapid next to it for the first 1 mile or so, and then we entered some rocky terrace. Since it had been raining for the last few days, the ground was muddy or slippery on the rock. That was not too bad with proper hiking shoes.


Up at the summit we had a terrific view of the New Hampshire plain of forest in foliage. It was breathtaking. Here is a video clip I took with a 360 deg view at the top.



It only took us 2 hours to go down. We took a detour to see a water fall. Not a tall one, but nice to be a detour from the trail that we had taken up the hill.

We had booked our dinner at Pizza Barn. I supposed it was a real barn in the past, judged from its outlook and the wooden poles inside. They had picnic tables and chairs only, but very cozy to eat.

On the way back, I slept throughout the journey. It was a Saturday well-spent. It was the first sunny day for the whole week after all.
__________________

I forgot to bring my Nikon D70s and I took all the pictures with my new cell phone Nokia N75. The picture quality is alright but the white balance is not quite correct most the time. I needed to correct the color manually in Photoshop. Water gets over-exposed all together and beyond repair. I should be getting more decent pictures from others' cameras in the next few days. They will be available here.
__________________

On the summit we met a couple who had taken their babies up there. The father had the toddler strapped on his chest, and the mother had her two-year-old girl sitting in a basket on her back. They are unbelievable.

What sorry should look like

Hope Dumble could learn it...

Adapted from http://rootsgpk.blogspot.com/

Halloween is almost here...

Adopted from http://rootsgpk.blogspot.com/

我願意

這是我最喜歡的廣東歌。第一次聽是九四年，香港大球場重建之後重新開放，舉行了一個演唱會。我在電視前看，王菲一出場唱的便是這首《我願意》。可能是第一次面對幾萬人演唱，王菲的聲線有點顫抖，但也正好配合歌詞和旋律，像一個女孩子顫顫驚驚地對愛人表白心意，說「我願意，我願意為你被放逐天際。如果你真心，拿愛與我回應，什麼都願意，什麼都願意，為你」。直到今天，一個人聽的時候，我都會感動得眼氾淚光。

我願意 - 王菲 
曲︰黃國倫
詞︰姚謙
編︰張亞東 

思念是一種很玄的東西

如影隨行　無聲又無息出沒在心底
轉眼吞沒我在寂寞裡

我無力抗拒　特別是夜裡
哦　想你到無法呼吸
恨不能立即　朝你狂奔去
大聲的告訴你

願意為你　我願意為你　我願意為你
忘記我姓名　就算多一秒
停留在你懷裡　失去世界也不可惜

我願意為你 我願意為你 我願意為你
被放逐天際　只要你真心
拿愛與我回應　什麼都願意
什麼都願意　為你

我什麼都願意　什麼都願意　為你

Back home

I am back to Ipswich Saturday night. The plane from JFK got delayed for almost 2 hours, and we were stuck inside the plane for one more hour before we could take off.

Shamik picked me up at the airport. He filled me up with things happening at work on the way, and he made me have dinner with him in a Thai restaurant because he was starving. I was not hungry, and I only ordered a Chicken satay and a soup.

I managed to stay awake until midnight in an attempt to get over the jet lag. But the next morning, I fell asleep at noon and only got up at 9:10 pm when Shamik rang my doorbell. He came over after working out in the gym. He brought an apple and a pear, which were intended for himself. And I made him cut them up and share.

Man.. I think I am still living HK time. Luckily tomorrow is a holiday and I can get more time to adjust the time zone.

A cheerful evening

I am spending my last few days in Hong Kong. This evening Dr. Shaw invited us to his home for the first time of over 10 years since I knew him. Eighteen people of our group showed up, plus Dr. Shaw's wife and daughter we made it a party of 21. It was a huge apartment, of course, overlooking the Science Park and the Toloo Harbor. We had pizza, KFC and sushi, plus a big basket of fruit and 3 bottles of wine. Dr. Shaw's wife was very nice to us. We chattered and played Uno. I couldn't believed I won 2 games out of four.

We spent over 30 minutes walking back to the train station. It was quite tiring but cheering evening. There are always plenty of fun when our group get together.

Microsoft Surface

If this one gets hold in the market, Microsoft can at last stand up to a real giant of personal computing by marketing their own original innovation. Microsoft describes surface computing "as significant as moving from DOS to GUI".

The innovation is Microsoft Surface. It is a computer that interact with users solely through its one single plain surface, the 30" display in this current version.



It is not a hoax, nor a parody to the Minority Report. It is real and has been opened to public (for a few hours) in premium locations, namely the lobby of Sharaton Centre Toronto Hotel and the Sharaton New York Hotel and Towers.

More information about Surface can be found here.

Squash buddies

I should be flying back to Boston next week. Today is probably the last time in a while to play squash with my buddies. I did play longer than usual, because an old friend was here. I have known him for 15 years, all the way back to the first year in college. He has turned from a young man jumping all around to the father of a five-year-old boy. It was the game that binds all of us together throughout the years.

Tonight I ended up terribly tired.. my lower back is complaining.


Ramy Ashour vs Thierry Lincou in Wind City Open 2007. A fantastic rally ends unfortunately with a slip of Ramy's.

Da Bino + Golden Hall

We had our farewell dinner for me and Don tonight. It had been planned for a coupled of weeks and we had it in Da Bino (大邊爐) in Kowloon City for hotpot. Their beef were really good. Thick enough to be juicy but tender. The famous fried bean curd skin was good, but not as good as people described. I was only getting sleepy toward the end of the meal.

We had desert in Golden Hall Desert (金滿堂) across the street after the meal. I had been there once a couple of months ago. Two steps into the store you would smell the durans. Man... their duran pancakes were awesome, a lot better than the famous Honeymoon Desert (滿記甜品). Their fruit juice + Yakult drinks were terrific too. I had Kiwi Yakult drink last time, and I tried blueberry Yakult tonight. It was good.

Judy's New Toy

Judy wanted to buy a compact digital camera and I showed her the Canon G7 on the web. She said she had a very bad experience with a pro-sumer camera before. I asked which brand was that. She said "Panasonic". Then I had to remind her that I had told her long time ago only buy camera from a proper camera maker.

So she loves the G7 just by looking at its info on the web. On the same day, which was last Friday, I skipped my squash games and went to Shatin to buy the camera with her. Since the G9 is soon be selling, there were only a couple of stores still selling G7, and at a fairly good price. Anyway.. Judy bought one.

Judy took it out to shoot on Saturday. She loved the camera so much that she sent me a SMS that evening and thanked me for showing her about this camera.

Today Judy brought the big toy back to work and showed me some of the pictures she took with the G7 over the weekend, as well as showing off a few cool functions of the camera. We were playing with it for a long, and these are pictures of mine she took when she was trying out the "Focus Bracketing". The pictures are a bit grainy because they were taken at ISO800.

Thank you again, President Bush. Today I learn the words "gaffe" and "goof" because of you. From the ABC of Australia:

Bush backs 'Austrian troops' at 'OPEC'

Posted Sat Sep 8, 2007 7:25am AEST
Updated Sat Sep 8, 2007 8:32am AEST

Bushisms: US President George W Bush addresses the business summit at the Sydney Opera House (APEC 2007 Taskforce)

• Map: Sydney 2000
• Related Link: Full coverage of APEC 2007

Gaffe-prone US President George W Bush confused APEC with OPEC and transformed Australian troops into Austrians in a series of blunders in Sydney on Friday.

Mr Bush's tongue started slipping almost as soon as he started talking at a business forum on the eve of the APEC leaders summit.

"Mr Prime Minister, thank you for your introduction," he said. "Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit."

As the audience of several hundred people erupted in laughter, Bush corrected himself and joked, "He invited me to the OPEC summit next year."

Australia has never been a member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Later in his speech, Mr Bush recounted how Prime Minister John Howard had gone to visit "Austrian troops" last year in Iraq.

Mr Howard was visiting Australian troops. There are no Austrian troops in Iraq.

- Reuters

_______________________________

I read in the news that George W Bush is planning to give talks after he steps down, just like other presidents did. It seems he has finally reckoned he's got a lot of talent for stand-up comedy.

Kids letters to God

From Alberta from 300' again.