Thanksgiving

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Made the “traditional” Chinese Thanksgiving this year.   A dish for each chicken, duck, fish, beef and pork.  Took me about two days from shopping to dishes.  Not too bad.  Em came over early and vacuumed for me.   I had time to take a nap even in the afternoon before the final push.  Ey had allergy attack again from staying more than a couple of hours here with the cats.  He barely can eat and fled.  We took the pumpkin cheesecake to Em’s to finish the meal.  Poor kid.  I have such guilt every time he comes over.  sigh.

On a lighter note, C asked me to go to Cash Bash with her and met with a couple of lady friends before for drinks and appetizer.  I had a BALL with these ladies.  They cracked me up and I was thoroughly embarrassed with the bold talk they had too.  I laughed till tears came out.  One of them carry a fart noise maker to prank.  Such fun ladies to be with.  And I didn’t think I would dance much since it’s been a long time I went and even danced socially west coast and hustle.  But I got to dance a lot and watched a lot of good dancers compete and in the end, I even danced with a pro.  It’s such a joy to dance with John Lindo.  He has such a genuine smile when he dances with you.  And he is like that with every lady he danced with.  And he can make things happen even if you don’t quite catch his lead and makes you feel so good that your inability didn’t show.  Oh, what a joy. 

I really do miss this kind of lead and follow dance.    Followers have to be always on her toes for the upcoming lead and even embelish when she can.  Leaders have to make things happen and not bore the follower he’s dancing with.  I only wish I am a lot better dancer than I am.  Dancing is so much fun!!!

Chen gave us a scare

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I arrived at S around 5pm.  She was still downstairs making the last dish.  We talked and got the dish ready.  KJ arrived shortly after Chen got home and we started munching on bread and dips and my spinach artichoke pastry and drinking Jasmine tea martini.  S’s steaks are as good as always and she had 3 or 4 side dishes, too.  I loved them all and especially the hot pepper sauce.  I am paying for it today, but man it was good.

When we were widning up and I was actually thinking about going home, s told me that she’s calling 911 for chen.  I said, what?!  He was laying on the couch and said he was not feeling good.  His hands were cold to the touch but he was sweating over a cold head.  He said his blood sugar was very low.  After a few minutes, we were trying to decide to go to the emergency room or not, he got up and took the blood sugar test again.  It was up and he was feeling better.  He went and laid back down on the couch and he was not feeling good again.  So we all got up and S took him to Akron General.  I and KJ followed in our respective cars.   When we go in, the desk said they are doing a triage on him and 15 minutes later, S walked out and said they are admitting him and he is already in his room.  She asked us to go home and said she’ll call if she needs anything.  So we left.  I wanted to stay but doesn’t want to be a hassle either.

This morning I called before 9.  S is already coloring her hair at a beauty salon.  She said they came home around 5am in the morning.  They ran a lot of tests, and his blood sugar came back up.  They thought it may have something to do with the medicine he’s taking.  And he’ll see his regular doctor next week.  He was sleeping and she is doing her hair.  Everything is back to normal.

She said she is used to this by now with so many scares and emergency situations.  Man, that must be hard on both of them.  One with physical problem the other with mental stress.  Health at our age is so important.  And it also confirmed my belief of living for today and do what you want to do now within reason.  And again I’m thankful for my health and for the ability to enjoy life the way I want to.

Be thankful for your health and enjoy NOW.

Spinach Artichoke pastry thing

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I bought the puff pastry meaning to make something months ago.  S invited me over for dinner tonight, so I took it out of the freezer trying to come up with something to make.

I have frozen spinach, I have can artichoke, some cheese,  can crab meat.  So I put them all together with some bluecheese salad dressing, radish mayo and some cheese.  we’ll see how it turns out.  ya never know!

Only if I’m younger

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Love the convenience of this netbook.  The only thing I wish I can change is…

my eyesight

The screen is only 10″ so the letters are small and the resolution isn’t the best out there either.  So I find myself constanly trying to adjust the contrast and hoping to adjust the color or zooming in in order to read.  I guess there is a trade off with the size.

Hang out with daughter day

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E and I decided to hang out together today.  We went to Macoroni Grill, my favorite restaurant, for brunch.  Calamari,procuto sandwitch and tomato basil soup.  All are wonderful and we were fully stuffed when we walked out of there.

Next, we went to Barnes and Noble to get some books for her to read on the trip to Kenya.  She decided on two books, The Shack and the Loving Bones.  We sat at the cafe and I whipped out my new netbook and went online.  She went to Amazon and looked up these books there.  My goodness, the price is almost half of what they are charging at Barnes and Noble.  Why!  We decided to order from Amazon instead.

Came home, fed the pets and walked Benny.    Went downstairs and messed with the new pc and unblocked the shawl and the stockings I’ve blocked on the carpet.  All nice and ready now.  Then I just vegetaged the rest of the night.  Can’t believe how much the cats and dog can sleep.  They are all out right now. 

Took Evernote’s suggestion and make a wishlist of stuff I like online and sent it to all those that are close to me.  They don’t have to worry about coming up with ideas if they are at a loss now.  They should all do this to make shopping a bit easier for everybody!

I do love this little netbook.  So easy to take whereever I go and its battery lasts and lasts!

Evernote

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I was reading about Evernote on their site and saw the Eye-Fi card again.  Wonderful little thing.  You can transfer the photos directly from your camera to your desktop or the online social sites like picasa r flickr, etc.  I wish one day, this can be extended to video camcorders (HD), and the documents folder on our PCs and the Mac to one central place.  You don’t need to worry about backing things up, it’s all done in the background automatically and in the appropriate media means.

New toy

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I had a very unpleasant dealing with the bank today.  All the rules and protection they put in for themselves when you need to get money from them.  But when they take money from you?  It takes no time.   Anyway, after the frustrating incident, I was so pissed that I went to Best Buy and bought a netbook that I was eyeing for last time I was there.  Here is the brand spanking new Eee PC 1005 HAB. 
From Gadgets

Remember I was bitching about hauling the big Vaio around and how hot it gets that almost burns my leg?  Ya, I solved THAT problem.  Here is my first impression of this netbook.

Since I have been using Vista and now Windows 7 for a long time, going back to XP take a bit of adjusting.  Things are not as well polished as the latest OS.  Also, this thing has only 1 gig of RAM.  It shows even when I’m typing.  Sometimes I would be typing ahead before the letters catch up with me.  But that was when Live Update was running in the background.  Now, it’s much better.  The keyboard is a bit smaller than the standard though.  It will take some time to get used to it.  The biggest problem for me is the page up and down keys are hidden under the the up and down key.  That is, you have to use the combination of the function key with the up and down key to use the page up and down.  I just realized that I use those pageup and down key a lot when I’m web browsing to quickly go down a page.  (Note, I found that the space bar can do the page down thing.  So one down. And shift-space is pageup. Duh!  The two finger parrell gesture can move up and down just like the iphone too!  Yeah!!)

I looked online for the 2 Gig RAM upgrade.  It doesn’t seem as straight forward as it should be.  But I didn’t spend too much time on it. 

As soon as I got home and plugged this thing in, I used Skype to call L.  He sounded like he was falling asleep.  But he answered and we talked for maybe half an hour.  I’m glad to see him albeit it was dark and fuzzy.  Finally after over a month and a half, I am starting to miss this old guy.  😉  I’m still busy and there are tons of things to do.  But it is very nice to talk to him and see him and just chat about nothing.  The webcam worked.  But he said it’s a little fuzzier than when I was on the iMac.  Understandable.  I can even tell on my end.  When I move, you see ghost movements. 

The screen is only 10″ so email and blog entry screen both look crammed.  But compared to iPhone’s small screen and thumb keyboard, it’s much better.  I bought the one with 6 cell battery.  Supposedly, it will last 6 hours.  I’ll see.  I am hoping for a longer and cooler unit than Vaio.  And I think I won’t be disappointed. 

The touch pad has the same zoom up and down finger gesture as the iPhone which I like.  And I just uploade the pictures form the SD card on this thing.  I like that!  I think it has all the things I want from a light netbook.  I just have to get used to the slower processor, the smaller screen and the smaller keyboard.  Things are just not as snappy as it’s big brothers but that’s kind of what you expect anyway.

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After using it for a couple of hours sitting in bed, browsing, blogging on this little book.  I think I like it more and more.  It’s light and the battery goes on and on and on.  Right now, it still has more than 80% left which equilents to 6+ hours.  I hope that’s true but even if it’s 4+, it’s more than enough for tonight before I clunk out. 

I should have go tone yeons ago.  🙂

blessings

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Perhaps it’s because L kept reminding me of things he is missing overseas, I am feeling especially blessed.  I have both the time and the means to pursue those things that I love.  I only need to work one day a week for a boss that appreciates what I do.  I am knitting, spinning, doing photography and videos and I get to enjoy a drink or a glass of wine when I feel like it.  I am drinking coffee that I roasted myself.  I get to try grooming Benny and get the right clipper for the job. 

I love to learn.  Be it a new software, a new tool, a new technique, I really enjoy the process of getting the scoop for a given task.   The only things I have to rein in a little is ballroom compeition.  It costs so much to go to an event, not only for the flights, the hotel room, food, but also the dances that you have to pay for, not to mention the invenstment in the costumes and makeup and hair and nails.   When I retire, I can then really start competing regularly.  But for now, I still get to take private lessons and I always learn something new in every lesson.

For right now, my favorite thing to do is to put recorded cooking shows on, surf on the net, knit or listening to the audio book and spin.    Life is really good and I am so blessed.

Why I don’t blog more often

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This question has been in my mind lately.  Often times, I get the urge to write throughout the day but I either don’t want to haul the notebook out of the backpack or the thought of  going downstairs or sitting uncomfortably in front of the PC just prevents me from doing it. 

The best device would be small enough to carry around all the time and has internet access anywhere you go.  Yes, a netbook sounds nice but you have to look for wireless access still, you can’t just whip it out any time you have an inspiration and have it up and out of your mind.  But it is the closest it can get for now.  Maybe soon wireless access will be a none issue with the speed of technology advancement today.  And everybody will be walking around with a netbook like we have cell phones now.

The iphone is much better than a unitask cell phone and it combines the PDA function with the phone which is what I always wanted.  It only lacks the ability of downloading audible books wirelessly that I was able to do with my previous PDA phone running Windows Mobile.  I liked that phone a lot but web surfing was not good at all.  And it didn’t have the wow factor of the apps on the iphone. 

I love my Vaio I can do anything I want on it, but it is big and clunky and the battery gets so hot it burns you when you place it on your lap.  Then you need to put a fan under it and that makes it so bulky you just don’t want to haul all that around even in the house. 

I love Evernote, it has such a potential to keep everything you want to remember or have a record of  in one place, but it requires a computer and the internet access to be as useful as it can be.  So that comes back to a perfect laptop with internet access at all times.  Yes, it can be done, I know.  A usb dongle with a cell phone plan.   But why should we pay $40-60 a month just to have the ability to access the interent at those moments of need.    It doesn’t justify the cost if you are just a casual onliner instead of a on-the-road business person. 

I love my MacBook Air, it’s light and it doesn’t get as hot as the Vaio and it’s powerful.  But it can’t do everything I need to do.  I can’t upload pictures because it doesn’t have a card reader built in, I can’t run my PC apps because it is a Mac. 

There is just no one thing that you can take with you and not have to worry about bringing all of the necessary usb cables and devices along to cover all your needs.  Oh, I can’t wait when such a thing is invented and I’ll be the first one in line to get it.