Saturday, December 31, 2011

Time for action!

Time for action2Where did you come from? lol. Can’t believe it, you crept up on me like a commando who had just swallowed an invisible pill :) I just didn’t see you coming.

Oh here we go, another blog about loosing weight :) It is in deed time for action, too many late dinners, too many second helping, too many desserts, too many snacks… and too little will, lol.

Let see how it goes for the next couple of months, if it gets worst, at least I’ll have an excuse to buy a wide angle lens (just to get this same shot), :)

Friday, December 30, 2011

Do not add water…

IMG_2785This was one of our rented vehicle that failed to escape from the flood, after talking to the person in charge, this car was under water for about a month. I think the iPhone photo speaks for itself (total loss), luckily no one was hurt.

This is just one small car, just imagine all of the homes that have been under the flood for an even longer time? We were one of the fortunate ones, the flood did come but the water was only knee high and did not reach the actual house (much to our relief).

A huge part of the problem were the politicians, their failures to release the water (slowly) from the dam when they had the chance; allegedly one old time (and very powerful) politician refuses to open up the water gate to his province until all the rice farmers finish their harvest (my feeling is still mixed here, on the one hand I am glad (his) farmers got their harvest, but at the expense of other farmers in other provinces); their failures to control the situation, their failures to organise help for the people who needed the most, their failures to control deforestation/overbuilding in catchment areas/damming in diversion of natural waterways/urban sprawl (NYtimes.com); their political ping-pong and incompetence had cost over 700 lives!

Now there is a talk that it could happen again next year! If it does, perish the thought…

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Saturday’s routine

On the overpassDear Matt,

You would have thought that Saturday would be a relaxing day for you, it is a weekend after all :) Of course not :)

I usually wake you up at six, shower and shave (kidding), by six fifteen-ish you would be sitting down to breakfast, but on the weekend everything runs a little later and a bit slower.

We have to be out of the house by around nine thirty, to arrive at Chamchuree Square by ten, that is when your music lesson starts, well it used to be your piano lesson, but the new head of ‘Dek Lek’ division (a direct translation is ‘Children Small’) decided to turn the curriculum upside down, instead of teaching you piano, you are now being taught the basic understanding of music.

Anyway the class ends at ten forty five, it is then required of me to listen to the debriefing of the class for another fifteen minutes, adding the time of us messing around chasing after each other, it would be almost twelve by the time we walk through the front door and straight to having lunch.

By twelve fifty we would have to leave again, this time we walk over the long overpass footbridge to get to your Brain School class (mostly just fun and games that have some hidden values behind it, well that is what we hope anyway, more importantly, you got along very well with the teachers here (Kru Jib and Kru Pia)). The class is one hour, after which I would let you play for a little while before heading back to home.

Once home, probably around two forty-ish we would let you relax just a little before ushering you to your bedroom for your afternoon nap. We only allow you two hours for the afternoon nap, otherwise you would be running around at midnight screaming ‘I am not tired Papa’.

Once you are up (a glass of milk would be waiting), the afternoon is free time, sometimes I would take you to the park, funfair, temple or whatever that keeps you entertain, before returning home for supper, evening television/iPad and then bed… :) Doesn’t sound much, but trust me the hours just fly by when you are having fun :)

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Got a new Freezer :)

Nothing but Milk

Dear Marcella,

Got a new freezer, well, just couldn’t find room for the peas and the chickens ;) You have no idea how much your mother is determined to give you the best :)

She is up in all strange hours, mostly half asleep “pumping out”, and the result is what you see here. She is determined to b-feed you for as long as she could, so after your meal she collects the extra and stores them away, at the expense of my peas and chickens… :)

By the way, after reviewing the stock last night, I am already looking for another (huge) freezer, lol.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Got it… <3

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Dear Marcella,

Finally today I got a picture of you smiling :) believe it or not I am typing this post one handed while the other is holding you tight, you are looking somewhere to the left probably thinking when I am going to give you the bottle, lol, the answer is 15 minutes.

I carried you to City Viva this afternoon (swapped role today, me & you and Mum & Matt), needed to get some sweets for your brother’s stocking, he kept asking if Santa can come ‘tonight’ (for the past 3 nights) and was always a little frustrated that our answer have been steadfast on the 25th… (awkward now, just turned you around so I am now typing with my left hand… sod this, shall finish later).

City Viva is just a short walk away, I think I made a mistake in putting you in a bright lime green trousers, while your body suit was a very loud candy pink, luckily we weren’t arrested by the fashion Gestapo.

You had a great time, new environment did you a world of good, besides the weather was perfect, seeing you trying to turn your head this way gave me a huge smile, so happy to have a full time role with you today :) (you are fast asleep in my arm, one tiny left hand stretched out palm down & open, resting on my left shoulder, <3 <3 <3).
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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

What a smile :)

DSC00537Dear Marcella,

Swimming and no afternoon nap was the perfect combination for Matt to fall asleep right in the middle of his after supper dessert (his favourite, Jack fruit of course).

That gave me the time to properly help out your mother and cradle you in my arms, after a while it felt like I was carrying a pregnant whale, my old arms were not what it used to be :) Your eyes were closed, your body was still, then suddenly you gave me not one but two huge smiles :) I wished I had caught it on camera… :)

Monday, December 19, 2011

“The Great Global Warming Swindle”

Somehow wandered into the Google statistic page for this simple blog of mine, and found out that the most visited post of all time, is a very short post named “Is Al Gore a Lier”, I had posted a link (along with some simple texts) to a youtube video of a presentation made by Christopher Monckton in which he gave a talk to quite a large audience, using a simple Powerpoint (well it could have been Keynote) to convey his message, and it was pretty convincing.

In following to finding out that post was the most visited post, I have decided to look around, to see if this anti-global warming is still going strong and came across the video below, which is (to me) quite convincing, unless someone comes out to say that these people are not the people they claim to be, I am pretty much sold on the idea.


Friday, December 16, 2011

Pixel Binning, just tell me when and where :)

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As usual I was looking around sonyalpharumors.com (I think the name describes itself fairly clearly), their latest poll was “Select your future A77 firmware upgrade must have features”.

The third most wished was the ability to ‘Pixel Binning’, I have never herd of this before but after finding out more, I was surprised that it came third.

Pixel Binning is the ability to choose  lower resolution (less Megapixel) and have the pixel join up (so to speak) to make bigger pixel, this should achieve higher (better) signal to noise ratio (I am probably messing this up), so your camera should take cleaner pictures in low light situations (less ISO required).

I’ve been to the Sony store a few times now, only to play around with the A77… only to walk away without taking out the plastic :) Now, if the next firmware have this pixel binning and it works properly… wow, just tell me when and where :)

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Perhaps, a couple of minutes of fame :)

Googel street View CarsWhile walking after lunch in Sukhumvit soi 24 I’d noticed due to traffic a ‘Google Street View’ car was coming to a stop literally next to where we were standing.

I didn’t even know they were mapping out Thailand, and they were using a Subaru as well, how classy :) (Subaru is not at all common in Thailand).

Of course all the images of silly street view maps with people dressing up suddenly flooded my mind, all I could do was gave it a wave and a smile, truly hoping that it will make it on to Bangkok’s street views… :) I wonder how long it will take for them to upload it?

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Gotcha :)

DSC091751Dear Matt,

In the latest batch I’d pulled out 217 images/clips from your SD card, from that very camera you are holding in your hands, of course most of it didn’t pass the censorship committee (the committee has one member, me).

You are just about three and a half now, and as each day passes you are handling the camera better and better, of course the flash is always on otherwise all of the photos would have been nothing but a Jackson Pollock painting.

At least you are capturing what you have intended and lately you are asking your live subjects to pose or even moving the props around to get the design you liked.

However, I wish you would stop dropping your camera though :) I think it may be too soon to talk about composition or exposure, so I am just going to let you have fun taking embarrassing photos of your parents for just a little while longer.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Are we being watched?

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Dear M & M,

Angry bird is still all the rage around here, Matt chose this one after his first trip to the Funfair, and your mother took this pic (probably bored out of her mind) as it was left to float on the ceiling in the living room.

I really, really like the pic though (no cropping).

So, how was it?

DSC09214Dear Marcella,

So, how was your first month? Well, you have been complaining a lot (really a lot) about the slow service, apparently we just can not serve you milk fast enough :) And you also have complained quite a bit about the sleeping arrangement, for as soon as we put you down, you simply started complaining and complaining and complaining, in fact you don’t stop complaining until we pick you up again.

At least you like the milk your mother serves, she has to do a lot of work in all hours of the night to keep you happy, but of course she does it all with a smile :) (unless it was three in the morning, lol). Welcome baby, we are just simply over the moon to have you in our arms :) really looking forward to all the months ahead, hopefully you will stop complaining soon, lol.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Strangely (very) Entertaining…

catsI was searching Youtube looking for clips of the game ‘Uncharted 3’, but somehow ended up on one of this guy’s vdo post, he goes by the name of SSOHPKC (real name being Seamus) and he is a part of the ‘Let’s Play’ community. Simply, he records his game play and post it up on Youtube in ten minutes or so chunks, the recording also includes his verbal comments which can be very ‘colourful’ (and very funny) at times (kids beware).

Strangely I find this so entertaining, just sat through ‘Uncharted 1’ (all 32 VDOs) and now making my way through ‘Uncharted 2’ (51 VDOs), with over 370,000 subscribers and over 194 million Video views it looks like I am not the only one who finds this fun :)

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Must try harder…

imageIn two days Marcella will be a month old, and to be honest this past month have been tough, especially on Gio, Marcella is, shall we say ‘sensitive’ and needed to be hold pretty much all the time, only this morning I had her sleeping in my arms (actually more like on my huge tummy) from three to six am. Truth be told I haven’t helped that much, instead concentrating on looking after Matt, and that in a way is making us living separate lives, just like a couple with one working the night shift while the other working the morning shift, simply we are trains running on separate tracks.

Mismatching of schedules means we don’t communicate as much as we used to, and that is so important for us. After a quiet reflection this morning, it looks like the ball is in my court :) lol, Gio is already pretty tired out all day long, so I’ll have to step up a gear... like how I did this morning, hope I can keep this going... :) lol.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Fun, Fun, Fun @ the Funfair :)

Dear Matt,

DSC09793Last week when I was dropping you off at school, K (mum of Otto, your closest friend) mentioned a fairground that have been set up in a huge empty lot right smacked in the centre of the city,  it turned out to be ‘Samyan Funfair’. She and others had already taken their children to this fair and thoroughly had a fantastic time, so the date was set for you to join the gang, who turned out to be your very close friends (Otto, Best and JJ).

The date was Friday, so the plan was for me to leave work a bit earlier than usual and pick you up after you have finished, being a month end Friday, for Bangkok this simply means traffic jam guaranteed :) Your mother was still nursing Marcella so it was your Auntie Tip who took you to the fair.


DSC097322When I arrived, I called Tip she said she was near the ‘Train’ ride, in actual fact you and her were in the Train! Roller-coaster style, and it was just about to pull out :) Now don’t imagine one of those loop the loop thing, although this ride was by far the fastest thing there is for kids your age. Honestly I thought you would chuck up (you didn’t).

What made me laugh was after the ride, once your feet touches the ground all of you ran off in totally different direction and imagine us running and after you :) Paad (meaning eight in Thai) was there too, he was your class mate at Noddy, I really like him :)



As I didn’t have my camera with me, all I could do was a few VDOs and a couple of pics on the BB, some of the parents told me that this was their third consecutive visit to the fair, I laughed because it was so tiring... Guess what, you and I did exactly the same thing... Friday, Saturday and Sunday, a wonderful hattrick :)

Your favourite was the ‘Fast train’, followed very closely by the ‘Motorcycles’, then the ‘Fire Engine’, each ride costs a minimum of 75 THB (3 coins), one of the ride was 20 coins (500 THB), and please don’t ask me how many rounds you did of each ride, let say I could have bought a little boat named ‘Titanic’ with the amount you’ve spent :) lol.

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