~ Happy New Year ~

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~ HAPPY NEW YEAR ~

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Let us usher the the year of 2008 with merry and laughter. I am a bit superstitious. I believe that it is paramount to be in a good mood on the first day of a new year. This is even more important to be jolly on the first day of Chinese New Year.

Hopefully eveyone of us will be able to stick to our new year resolutions. We must learn to Let Go and Move On. Although we may be aware of this, sometimes we need a little reminder.

Good luck and all the best!

San Mateo Kennel Club Dog Show

Went to San Mateo Kennel Club Dog Show which took place at Fiesta Hall, San Mateo Event Center. So many dogs! Various sizes and breeds. Usually the dogs of the same breed will compete for one title.

HUGE dogs. Resting time.	ELEGANT dogs. Show your stuff!

Each of the dogs are checked. (To check if the dogs are healthy? Their mouth/teeth, ears were scrutinized). The dogs were aslo tested for obedience.  I was impressed by how obedient most of the dogs were. Not only that, I did not hear dog barkings, amidst so many dogs being near to each other. If in my kampung, my best bet is that the dogs will try to tear off each other.

Sooo CUTE. Being checked	Being groomed like a king. Nice hairstyle!

Duck-ies and Penguins

These sign boards were taken near office. 

 

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There are a lot of duck-ies around the building compound where I work. The duckies like it here because we have a lake for them to play and a lot of fresh grass for them to feed. Not only that, we genuinely care about their safety and well being. Really! This is the proof!

Watch out for ducks! Adhere to the speed limit! 

 

These duckies pose some problems though. Their droppings are all over the ground in some area. So watch out when you want to take a stroll near the lake.

 

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Software developers are usually a bit overweight because of their working environment. Just bumming around………. and the result? Become like this la… Cute and round…
 

Actually what I said was not true. I see a lot of people working out in the gym and most of the people in the company are really fit lah. And we certainly do not bum around.

 

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Interesting sign boards, right?

Yosemite National Park

, I ter-delete my post again. This time, I type on a Notepad first before copying and pasting onto the blog.

What I did for Christmas? I went for a day trip to Yosemite National Park. The park is about 4.5 hours drive from my place. I followed my friend’s friends there. A day before the trip, someone can’t make it, so there was a space for me! Got to know some nice and interesting people. Quote from Wikipedia: “Yosemite is internationally recognized for its spectacular granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, Giant Sequoia groves, and biological diversity.”

The lowest part of the park has at least 600 meters elevation. The road leading to the park is winding, like the road to Cameron Highlands. When we reached the gate of the park, the first thing we did was to take a picture of/with a board which bored the words “Yosemite State Park”. To show that we had been there mah. This place was not crowded as it is winter. During the warmer seasons, this place is packed and you have to book for lodging very much in advance.

I never did any hiking in US. Hmm… I think I would enjoy it, but no kaki here la.

Thanks to our knowledgable tour guide (his fourth visit. has hiked up Half Doom Dome), we maximized our time and only visit/see important places. It gets dark at about 4-5 p.m. during winter. I may have seen other named/featured falls and rocks without realising them. Since it is winter, there is no water in the lake, and there was very little water trickling down the falls. Did not look magnificant at all. Below are the features our tour guide mentioned.

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Features Visited/Viewed

Half Dome
Mirror Lake
Bridalveil Fall
Yosemite Falls

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Half Dome is the small white rock with a sharp point in the middle of this picture

 The walk to Bridalveil Fall was treacherous! It was icy ( not snowy, it would be much be easier to walk if it was snowy)
and uneven on some parts. This made it very slippery! The path was about 300 meters? I have no idea. But it sure did seemed very long to me! At some points, some people slided(on the butt) down, fell down, crawled up, walked kangkang for balancing and for those who were graceful, they did not seem like they were having much trouble! Just to note, my shoes did not have any grip what-so-ever at all! I was having a hard time. I personally thing that the the path was dangerous. I saw a boy, sliding down at one part, and he lost control! He may had just slide off the path, into the river! Hmm, maybe I am a little bit over protective?

View from Mirror Lake	Bridalveil Fall on the background. You can see ice is formed at the sides of the fall.It took A LOT of effort to capture this picture

Which picture is taken by a better phtographer? You decide.  Yosemite Falls on the background. If you see carefully, there is water trickling down

It is recommended if you go to the park in a group. There is no coverage around this area; this is the case for T-mobile at least.

Yosemite National Park is beautiful during warmer seasons. You will surely like this place, if you enjoy nature.

Xmas Lights Lights Lights Everywhere

Saw a discussion regarding Christmas Lighting on the mailing list. Decided to visit Eucalyptus Ave, San Carlos and see it for myself. It is only 2.4 miles from my place anyways. The view was  …re a l l y… breathtaking. Apparently, the avenue is very popular. All (except maybe one or two) houses on the avenue collaborated and decorated their houses. The place was packed! Enough said, these are the pictures! So pretty hor?

According to one ‘fact post’ on one of the houses, there were usually about 5000 visitors to see those lightings and the electricity bill for the month is about $600 for that particular house :) Other than decorating the houses for the spirit of Christmas, the decorated houses also stand a chance to be the winner of San Carlos Annual Home Exterior Decorating Contest in various categories. This is the result for 2007.

Many peoples were snapping pictures. There was also a Santa Claus for entertaining people and also picture taking. Not only that, one of the resident placed a snow slide outside their house! Wow! (FYI, it does not snow in here) So basically, it looks like normal slide, but there was snow on the slide. Kids surely were having a great time.

Some residents were having a BBQ/gathering at their patio/yard.

There was also an interesting house. The various lightings synchronizes with the music played. Nice! It won the Best Light Show for the  San Carlos Annual Home Exterior Decorating Contest.

Other than the houses, dogs were decorated too. One of the reasons I really like to go for such public events is that there are a lot of doggies!

In addition to Santa Claus, cartoon characters were also popular.

Lights Lights everywhere!
Merry Christmas!

So Nice!

So nice! So nice! So nice!

I just got my remote control for my TV, from its previous owner! So nice. Although he may just pass by our place, he took the trouble to pass us the remote! He lives like 20 minutes drive from us. We have been trying to call him yesterday, but his phone was engaged or he wasn’t at home. So we thought that we will get the remote on Wednesday, after Christmas as he may want to have a quiet family gathering. BUT, the remote is with us now.

SO NICE!

~ Merry Christmas ~

Pinky and partner would like to wish everyone Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Have a Merry Berry Jolly Happy Christmas!

Electronics Galore

S i g h, ter-delete my post! Okay, I’ll (have to) type again. On the bright side, I can have extra practice typing…. I said, I have been buying alot of electronics lately!

1. Wii!! I can’t believe I took the effort to get it. I am certainly NOT a gamer. Woke up at 6am, reached GameStop at 7.15 am, waited for 45 minutes and then go to work. At least this is better than Thanksgiving Sales where quite a number of people queued overnight outside of shops to get the best deals the shops had to offer. Crazy! I am happy because our first effort to get a Wii was fruitful. I heard a lady lamented that she had been trying to get one since summer. She got one this time. There were 30 Wiis available. We were #24! Some people who were at the end of the line did not get the Wiis though. Many parents waited and queued to get one for their children. The power of love!

2. Sony Wega 32″ Flat Screen. Model #kv32fv16. Old old TV. I just found out that it is a whooping 176 pounds!! We only know that the TV was damn HEAVY and BIG when we went to check out the TV. It could not fit our car! The owner offered to drive the TV to our place. So paisae. On the way, our car was almost out of fuel. Were deciding between refueling and hoping that the fuel was enough to bring us back. We refuel la. The man were waiting for us already. *blush* so mafan. And then we waited for 50 minutes in the cold for our friends to help carry the TV to our apartment. .  I was very relief that its now in the house. I just got an email from the man saying that the remote is with him and we can pick it up tomorrow or he can drop off the remote when he pass by our place. So nice!

3. DVD Player. Since we have a TV now, and we subscribe to Netflix, might as well utilize the TV.

4. Laptop. Acer Junior. No choice. Hopefully this Acer will last for at least hmm .. 4 years.

5. Notebook fan cooler. Was trying to salvage Acer Senior but to no avail. At least it is useful for Acer Junior too.

6. GPS. Necessary for road trips.

 7. Lexmark X2580 All in Oee Printer/ Copier/ Scanner. Free after rebate.

My 1st Xmas card

I went to the office kitchen to send a Xmas card to my friend and I saw an envelope in my mail box.

It is a Xmas card from my colleague! So sweet of her. She is now in India for her vacation. I surely feel her absence!

This card surely made my day. A great start for the day!

Re: White Elephant Gift Exchange

On hindsight, I should have snatched the keyboard cleaner. That certainly will be very useful. Hmm, pieces of stuffs (most probably food?) are visible in my keyboard.

Oh btw, a colleague bought an electronic keyboard for the gift exchange. So cool! Too bad it would not be useful to me. That should be waaay over $10! I think that it would be nice if I know how to play some musical instruments especially piano or organ. I think girls who knows how to play those give the perception that they are gentle.