Saturday, May 23, 2009

Building a new system

It is such a bad time to think about building a new system, I was just gathering some information about building a new PC, and have come across so many factors that have put me off for the time being…


First of all Core i7 is still so expensive at this moment, all the new motherboards look so attractive but again I think USB 3 is coming, and it will be a while before that is incorporated into the MB. USB 3 is such a huge leap from USB 2, I think it is worthwhile to wait, this is especially true when I am in no rush to upgrade. Although my set up right now can be look upon as ‘pre-historic’ with Pentium D at the heart of the system.


Apart from the hardware, Windows 7 is only just beyond the horizon, and hopefully it will be as good as everyone is saying. Another development I am waiting for is the SSD, there is no doubt that soon it will be the standard C: drive (as soon as the capacity increases and the price drop). Another thing I am waiting for is the Drobo to come to Thailand, there are is no official distributor yet (fingers cross).


The most important thing is to get permission from your mother… :) and that could take a while…

It’s just like Flying a kite (22.05.2009)

I think trouble is coming :), yesterday when we came home (in the city), we found my mother very excited, she couldn’t wait to tell us that you have taken your first couple of steps… you are already a handful on your four, can not imagine you running around and us trying to keep up… I am already knackered just thinking about it.

Ok, imagine this, there were 3 of us, sitting in a triangle formation, your grandmother has this down to perfection… here goes…

First is to make you stand up (by holding you under your arms) then wait until you are almost still (waiting for you to be still is like waiting for the rain to stop in a monsoon season)

Slowly, we transfer one of our hand from underneath your arm to grab on to your shirt (at the back), then remove the other hand, so what we have now is you standing by your own with only us holding on to the back of your shirt, honestly it is like just flying a kite, you would be swaying from side to side and of course we have absolutely no control whatever… :)

Here comes the tricky part, ‘aiming’, let say you started with me, so now I have you in the ‘launch’ position… (check list… standing (yep), shirt holding (yep), smiling (yep)). Aiming is 80% luck and 20% destiny, what I did was to wait until you looked at your mother and the real signal is when you stick out both of your arms… now ‘THAT’ is the time to let go…

Talking about a great example of a ‘waddle’, grown ups usually walked that bad usually only after a few pints of snake bite & black, right now you can only manage 3 to 4 steps (in an almost straight line).

Today we have Gymboree, I am sure the rest of your classmate, Taeya and Pound would now be waking too… can not wait to see them all with you today, thinking about all of you waddling around makes me smile…

Love you.

M&D

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Monsoon is here

It had been raining quite hard for the past couple of days, it was an absolute nightmare on this past Thursday and Friday, when it began to rain heavily right through the rush hour, driving on the roads really tested one’s ability to remain calm. The rain will make you driver slower and to add to it, all the accidents that happens and you have a recipe for a fantastic traffic jam.


Last Thursday, we had left the house a little late, but it took us over 2 hours to get into the city where usually it only take around an hour, meaning after dropping you off and driving to my office, I didn’t get into the office on that day until around 11, by the time I had settled in it was lunch time (talking about feeling guilty), and I was not the only one.


But we don’t really mind the rain, it means all the farmers will now have enough water for their farm, the weather seems to be getting a little strange of late. There is a ‘winter’ season, but usually it only consists of one or two cooler days, but last year there were some weeks where one would say it was actually ‘cold’, the ‘summer’ is getting hotter and hotter by the year. This year is absolutely noticeable, the heat was quite unbearable.


Some say that the peak of the summer is our ‘Songkran day’, then slowly we move into the monsoon season, always, the first rain is the hardest with very strong gale and this year was no different. Since the first rain we have been getting heavy downpour almost everyday, we are now in May, so there will be many more months of rain yet.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Turning slightly “Orange”

Several times during this past two to three weeks, several people had mentioned that you looked slightly ‘orange’, and when putting you next to us you can really notice that you are slightly orange… Well, this was not that surprising to us, your diet consists of quite a lot of pumpkins and carrots, but in reality you should have turn “green” considering how much more of the green vegetables you’ve been eating (Broccoli, Chinese Cabbage, Ivy Gourd, Spinach, courgettes and etc).

Anyway, all the comments we’ve been getting got us a little paranoid today, so on your way back (from your swimming exercise), your mother popped in to see the Doc. just in case. Well, apparently as long as your eye is still white all should be fine, but we’ve been told to lay off all the ‘orange’ food for the time being.

No more carrots/pumpkins for a while… :)

Love you.

Mum and Dad

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Happy First Birthday

DSC_0790 Happy Birthday… you are a massive 1 year old (May 5th), luckily you were born on a public holiday (Chatmonkol Day) so I had a day off. As you can see, your right eye is still a little green, trust me it looks a lot better than just a couple of days ago.

After your breakfast and your morning sleep we decided to go out, the first port of call was ‘Baromrachakarnjanapisekanusorn’ temple, it was close by and had become well known through television (still getting use to the camera, this time I had left it on iso 1600 by mistake… so the pics look a little grainy… :) )
 

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It was such a hot day even for Thailand, moving from building to building we had to walk barefoot on searing hot stone floor, I should have taken some clips of us running across the hot floor, it was not a pretty sight.



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After  arriving there, it was not difficult to gasp why it took over 12 years to build this Chinese style temple; full of small detail and very well structurally organised, all in all very impressive.

I don’t want to admit this, but I think your mother can take better photos than I can on this camera.


After the temple, the next stop was a water market near by, your mother came across this from one of the guide she was given (sorry I can not remember the name of this water market), it was about 20 Kms away but the drive took longer than it should because the roads were terrible (most of the roads were under construction). We must have arrived there around 15:00, but the market was already closing, most of the stalls were closing up, so the plan to have a late lunch here went out of the window.

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Cap%20001_thumb[3]Driving back home was not that bad, we had to stop off at a market near our home to get some dinner, your mother and I were both totally famish, more importantly we had to get you a cake… how can it be a birthday without a cake? :)

Of course we took forever shopping, this time our stomachs were much larger than our eyes… Anyway, we got a cake and a candle as you can see (sorry, this photo was captured from an mp4 clip so the quality is rather terrible).

I am still trying to find a free mp4 editor program, so there will be no post of any clip until then…



Love you.

Mum and Dad

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Not the Hospital again…

It is only a few days away from your first Birthday, your mother and I were discussing where we should take you for that special day, but we didn’t expect that we had to visit the hospital again.

There had been 3 big scares for us, first was the gas thing, to hear you cry from pain was totally unbearable. Not long after that was your allergic reaction to the medicine, to see you all red was frightening (but at least you were smiling), and no so long ago was the very high temperature… and now… you went and fell off your high cot (you should have heard the thump).

SANY0026 Sunday, 26th at around 9 am… your mother was only a couple of steps away, but you managed to climb on the cot’s railing when it went passed your waist the law of gravity did the rest. It must have been around 3 and a bit feet off the ground; head first… can you imagine our torment?

Huge bruise on the right temple, and a vicious black eye… it looked horrible, even I didn’t want to take a picture of it. It has been almost a week now, bruised eye is so much better but it is still a little purple. All through the past week you had been your normal self, still playing and eating well, so we had no concern (the Doctor said to keep a close eye on you).

This was by far the worst thing we had to face with you.
 

Yesterday was May 1st, a national holiday, with nothing better to do we took you on a small adventure. Decided to park the car at Chamchuri square, then caught the MRT (underground train) to Silom, changed onto the BTS (overhead sky train) to Siam. It was not that bad nor that easy, getting through both MRT and BTS with a huge pram was a challenge, it made us realised that the whole public transport didn’t make that much provisions for the disabled (I mean we only had a pram, so we always could just carry you when it was necessary).

There were no special lanes for the disabled, just as an example, if one was to exit the station on a wheelchair, one had to go to the exit then insert the token so that the exit gate would open, but the exit gate is tiny, meaning one had to go all the way to the entrance where there is a manual door wide enough for the wheelchair… what a pain in the %$#. This is just getting out of a station, getting to the station itself can be almost impossible, not all of the stations (MRT and BTS) even have elevators… How can one call this ‘public’ transport?

Because you are now moving so much, I had decided to get a small camcorder to compliment the new DSLR I had recently bought. The quality of the VDO was not high on my requirement list (anything better than the VDO mode on a point and shoot would do), so I had gone with the Sanyo CA9… not a bad choice considering what I needed, the additional bonus is the 1.5 meter waterproof capability. So I am no longer taking pictures, just small clips of VDO, what a laugh it had been, I have this shot of you trying to walk (holding tightly to Gio) while we were waiting for the MRT train… beautiful…

This afternoon you’ll be going to Gymboree and I am sure there will be many more great shots there… can not wait…

Love you so much

M&D