Found more old classmates... This time from Anderson Sec Sch

An old classmate found me on Facebook and invite me to join Facebook Group "1993 Andersonians." This is a class photo taken in 1993 when I was in Sec 4. See if you can spot me. Hee hee...

Liberty and Ron Paul

Have you heard of Ron Paul before?

Do you believe in liberty and individual rights?

If you do, google "Ron Paul" to learn more about the man and his ideals.

Also, support the movement by becoming a member of Campaign for Liberty.

Merry Christmas!

Wow, Christmas is upon us again. I have spent the last two weeks decorating the house for Christmas. It ain't Christmas unless there is a tree surrounded by lots and lots of presents. The tree is about 10 1/2 feet tall, I have to climb to the top of the ladder to decorate it.

There is also a small ceramic christmas tree next to the big one.

The fireplace is also dressed up with stocking... Better for Santa Claus to put candies in.... It is also a good place for him to drop presents for the girls and our pet snake and cat. All of whom have been very well-behaved.

We have also received Christmas greetings from from friends and family, which we displayed on the credenza.

In Memory of Puffball, Phantom, MoonShadow, MoonShine and Ghosty (Part 2)

Puffball is the chick in Nadia's chest pocket. He likes to stay in the pocket, it is warm and safe. He was to first to be "rescue" from Wabash Feed Store after Ivy took the hatched chicks back to the store.

Phantom, MoonShine, Ghosty and MoonShadow posed for Laila's Science Fair Project.

In Memory of Puffball, Phantom, MoonShadow, MoonShine and Ghosty

Puffball

Phantom

MoonShadow

MoonShine

Ghosty

Lived until Aug 2, 2007.

Brutally attacked by a dog.

We are sorry we gave you up. We miss you.

Turning 30

Just 10 minutes left and my BD will be over. The first 23 hours and 50 minutes as a 30-yr old woman has passed uneventfully. I spent most of my waking time driving back from Alamosa, CO. Stopped by at Red River, NM for horse ridding and a late lunch. Met a really friendly dog at the Red River Stables which wanted to play "fetch."

By the way, I found 4 strands of white hairs. Yikes!

Scenes from Palo Duro Canyon TX, Blanca CO, and Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

After the big July 4th party, we have one day of "rest" and then it's off to Blanca, Colorado. We stopped over at Palo Duro Canyon, Canyon TX for a day, and here's a view of Texas's own "Grand Canyon."



Then, it's off to Blanca, CO. It's a very small town, so we stayed at Alamosa, CO instead, which is about 25 miles west of Blanca. Here's a view of Mt. Blanca:

Here's a paranomic view of Sangre de Cristo mountain range:

Yesterday, we visited Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. It is the largest sand dunes in North America. Here's also a paranomic view of the sand dunes:

Pictures taken with my Nikon Coolpix S3 and the paranomic pictures are "stitched" together with ArcSoft Paranoma Maker 3. Click on the pictures to see them in higher resolution.

July 4th Celebration - Rockets and Fireworks

On July 4th, we have a party at our Brazos Bend completed with rockets and fireworks. The children found a stray dog and she was quickly adopted by one of the families who were there.


This is a video recording of one of our rockets, Coral Snake. There are many rockets shot that day, but this was the best.





Better than watching professional fireworks is setting your own fireworks. Only on July 4th and New Year's Day are civilians allowed to set firework themselves in the United States.




.............Ground Firework..................... Arial Firework




P/S: The video and pictures are all taken using Nikon Coolpix S3.

My brother's visiting the States

Just checked out my brother's blog. He is blogging his trip to the United States. Landed in Seattle, will drive down to San Francisco... fly to Dallas ... see my cousins there then visit me in Houston, in time for my graduation. Then we'll go to Las Vegas together, visit the Grand Canyon... and I will return to Houston, while he flies to San Francisco for a few days and then back to Singapore.

Anyway, check out his blog for the latest update on his trip.

Kelvin Lee's Blog

Long lost friends

Just found some long lost friends from my Mayflower Primary School years. Four total. So far, one has accepted my invitation to be added as "Friend" on friendster. Three more to go. I'm so happy! :)

My Toy Guns

Shooting is a new hobby of mine. I'm still learning, but I'm getting fairly good at shooting stationary targets at extreme range, i.e. 300 to 1,000 yards (meters). I will be going hunting with Kyle on Tuesday and Friday, and maybe Saturday depending on whether we manage to get a deer or not. Our friend Kevin will be trapping wild hogs. Venison and pork, Yum! I'll blog about that later.

That's me a few years back with an AK-47.

That's my brother, Chengda with an air rifle

The Haunted House Beckons


Your Hosts Tonight

Kyle Dracula, Fat Jac Geisha, Nnth Rock Witch & Llll Rock Witch

Your Esteemed Guests

And a Missing Cat Woman

This night is a night to get candies,
or to play tricks on the party-poopers.




Be Scared,
Be very Scared.....

Halloween aftermath

Goodbye Hallow's Eve. It was fun...

Ever wonder the origins of Halloween? This are some of the sources I found on internet:

1) History Channel - Ancient Origins of Halloween
2) Issac Bonewits' Neopagan (New non-christian believers) Website - The Real Origins of Halloween
3) The good ol' Wikipedia

This three websites should suffice. I will post pictures of the treat or tricking later. Got some great pictures of my fellow Treat or Trickers but I don't have my camera with me right now. Sigh....

Halloween picture from last year ... Will update soon... Promise?

I've just been "rightly" accused that I have not update my blog for AGES.... Halloween is right around the corner. This picture was taken last year. The Frankenstein "I can't spell" is my 2-meter boyfriend. Opposites attract.

After the Halloween party next week... I PROMISE to post something about it.... I PROMISE, Renjin! There... you satisfied?

No More Linksys Products

This will be my last Linksys purchase. I have relatively good experiences with them in the past, but after yesterday's fiasco with Linksys techicians and the lemon I bought for $100, I have come to the conclusion that the company's is more interested in milking its brand recognition for greater profit at the expense of its customers and good product design.

I bought Kyle a Linksys WPS54G Wireless-G 802.11g print server for Christmas last year. It was a practical gift that I thought will allow us to print, scan and fax without having to hook our laptops to the HP Officejet 6110 All-in-One printer.

GREAT idea, BAD choice.

I finally gotten around yesterday to install the print server. The product does not come with a detailed user manual (you have to download that from Linksys website). The only instructions to set up the device is a quick install manual which is straight forward enough. I was able to follow the instructions and finish configurating the device. For a second, I was elated. However, when I tried to print a test page, it failed. I went over the set up again but this time, the print server did not recognize our printer. Even when I hardwired my printer to Kyle's laptop, his computer did not recognize it. Apparently, when I was setting up the print server, the server erased the printer driver.

So, I called Linksys' technical help line. BAD idea. I got hold of a human quickly enough. She took all my information and the nature of my call and then told me that she really could not help. She had taken the info so that she can pass that to a senior technical assistant. She put me on hold for 5 minutes and then a new guy took over my case. He was another gatekeeper and quickly determined that my problem is to be referred to someone higher up. So I was put on hold again. This time, the hold was 20 minutes.

While I was left to wait... and wait... and wait...

I decided to do a little research on the internet about Linksys WPS54G Wireless-G 802.11g Print Server. The feedback was not pretty. Here's a few:
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From Amazon.com - Linksys Quality Control: it doesn't exist, December 28, 2004
Reviewer: Brian (Dallas, TX)

I know people are going to find this dubious, but after spending two hours on the phone with Linksys I can confirm that Linksys themselves say that WPA does not work with this product and they have no ETA whatsoever for when it might work.
I was suckered into buying the original 802.11g print server, the wps54gus, which didn't support WPA and never got a firmware update adding support. Then I see this new model has been released, so I call Linksys, because if you've bought one of their products in the past two years, you know that you should CONFIRM EVERYTHING, preferably in a notarized letter from Linksys itself.
For whatever reason Linksys has AGAIN shipped a product that is broken by design, untested, pre-beta quality. Just like so many of their other wireless products, bridges, etc., this puppy just will not work properly and Linksys does not seem very interested in changing that. I guess they blew their whole budget on those snazzy product designs.
I repeat, WPA does not work with the WPS54G, it may never work with it, and this is from a Linksys senior technician himself and confirmed by customer support, who will tell you Linksys doesn't have a print server that supports WPA, period.
So, in light of this, does Linksys remove references to WPA support from its own web site and marketing materials? Of course not! You see, if they can get you to buy it, they can probably get you to wait for that miracle firmware update that will fix every problem. But, as I have learned, those firmware updates sometimes never materialize.
Seriously, at some point a class action lawsuit will be in order. Linksys hasn't just released one dodgy, broken product with flaws it was fully aware of, it has done this several times. You poor suckers who bought this thinking it would give you WPA encryption had better do something.
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From Amazon.com - piece of doo-doo, February 9, 2006
Reviewer: Chet Marino (Walnut Creek, CA USA)

If it doesn't work with multi-function printers, then why don't they say that on the box?? It didn't even work with my Epson C80 printer which isn't multifunction. The documention is non-existant and the setup program does anything but. I spent 30 minutes on the phone with some chick from India with an accent so thick I finally told her "I'm sorry, but I just can't take this any more." You couldn't give me another LinkSys print server.
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From http://reviews.cnet.com - "Warning: Does not work with many printers!", August 21,2005
Reviewer: jgoodman1 (see profile)

There is no disclosure on the box but this print server will NOT work with most multifunction printers and many regular printers. The device was easy to set up but it then could not detect my printer (the USB light was not lit). Linksys tech support told me to exchange the print server and after another trip to the store, the problem remained. Linksys then told me that they knew about compatibility problems between the print server and MANY printers. The most annoying thing is that they don't mention this on the box. EVEN MORE ANNOYING IS THAT THEY WILL NOT PROVIDE ME WITH A LIST OF COMPATIBLE PRINTERS!!! So, if you have a multi function printer (fax/copier/printer), don't waste your time buying this. And if you have a regular printer, make sure that you can return the print server before buying it, because there is a good chance it won't work with your printer. Very poor job by Linksys product development here.
-------------------------------
My experiences are no better. The senior technician finally answer my call. He was not very helpful either. When I told him that I alsready gone through with the set up steps twice and still could not get the print server to work, he replied that he probably couldn't help much either and would not want to waste my time going through the steps again. Also, he stated that since my printer was a multi-functional one, even if we manage to miraculously get the print server to work, it will only be able to do the printing job. Furthermore, if I were to hardwire my computer to the printer to scan or fax documents, I will have to set up another port so that my computer can do these jobs.

The final blow came when he told me that Linksys would not take back the print server, even though they have acted in bad faith by designing a piece of crap and did not disclose on their product packaging that it would only work on a very limited number of printers especially all-in-one types. I could try my luck with the retailer though, he added sheepishly.

Out of Nothing

Call me a latecomer. I have only heard about blogging last year. When I first heard about it, I thought that is kind of silly. I still think so. Did I just call myself silly? Yap. The reason I think it is silly is because I will lose my privacy. What if someone use the information I post against me? Will I be stalked by some cyber freak? These are some legitimate problems that may come back to haunt me someday. Oh well, I'll just keep intimate information to myself as much as possible.

I have not decided what I will be writing yet. I suppose it will be anything that inspire me. Nothing much... nothing exciting... or important...just gibblish... That's why I name my blog "Everything about Nothing."

You must be wondering, if I think this is silly, why do I even bother? I have my friend, Dee, to blame. She is a blogger and has recently wrote about our trip to Pulau Ubin. We have taken many pictures that day and she had them posted on her blog. I just thought it was the neatest thing. You see, I am visiting my friends and family in Singapore and had wanted to share with my boyfriend things and places that I am visiting. Dee's blog kind of act as an "electronic" postcard. I will be returning to the States tomorrow, and it will be at least a year before I see my friends and family again. I thought a blog will be the easiest way for me to update them about my life and thoughts.

Anyway, I met with Dee and Sufen earlier today and sort of promise them that I will create my own blog site as well. They are convinced that I will take my time (which means forever) since I am a procrastinator and always late for our outings. I want to prove them wrong this time... before school work consumes all my time and energy again. So, here I am, composing my first blog in the early morning while everyone is asleep. Dee and Sufen will be proud of me.