Occasional Ramblings from Rockwall, Texas

A new phase of Life: Retirement

2011-08-02T08:12:00.003-06:00

July 29th, 2011 was my last day of officially working as a full-time employee. ISA (Innovative Signal Analysis, Inc) has graciously given me an opportunity to work part-time on an as needed basis and thus I no longer have to go in to work regularly.

So your question is: what will I do next?

Well, for starter, I will just have to enjoy my free time for a little bit and be a vegetable, then there are travel plans that Jan and I have always wanted to do. We also want to do some mission work and will begin looking at opportunities with our church's mission ministry. There are also work around the house that I haven't been able to do while I was still working full-time. I think for the next two years we already have a rough idea of where we will be going, and what kind of house works to be done. After that we will be looking at our other thing in the ever changing bucket list.

Here's a summary of my work career:

June 1967: Arrived in the US at the age of 20, Gr Rapids, MI
1967-1970: Attended Calvin College, Gr Rapids, MI, Pre-Engineering
1970-1972: Attended University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, BSEE
1972-1977: Lear Sigler, Inc., Grand Rapids, MI
1977-1982: Magnavox Gov't Industrial and Elect. Co., Ft Wayne, IN
1982-1986: Raytheon Company, Sudbury, MA
1986-2002: E-Systems Inc/Raytheon Company, Garland, TX
2002-2011: Innovative Signal Analysis, Inc., Richardson, TX

That's it. from 1972 to 2011 is 39 years of continuous employment and I think I am ready for some R&R.

New grandkids

2011-04-07T09:32:00.001-06:00

Since my last post, we've gained two more grandkids: Hunter Nordstrum and Micah Brooks. Hunter is the daughter of Jonathan and Amanda, our youngest child. Unfortunately Hunter was not able to come to the grandkids gathering. I'll add more info on her later. Micah is the new Alaskan addition to the Rozell family. He was born October 1 2010. As usual, Jan and I flew out to Fairbanks, AK to greet his arrival and renew our contacts with the other grandkids.

Way overdue posting - Welcoming Parker Scout

2010-03-01T20:20:00.009-07:00

I didn't know if you noticed the new blog headline photo. In the lower left is our newest addition to the family, Parker Scout Nugen, grandchildren number Eight. She was born just three weeks ago (February 8) and I had the pleasure of holding her, feeding her, and just play with her the weekend after she arrived. So, without further ado, here are a few pictures of her.

Eric Baggett's first birthday!

2010-01-26T19:59:00.004-07:00

I was able to go to home to texas this past weekend to attend Eric's first birthday party. Here are a few pictures from that event.

My next project - iPhone FM Modulator

2010-01-16T16:11:00.002-07:00

Last year I bought an iPod/iPhone adaptor so that I can connect my iPhone to my car radio directly without using a cassette adaptor or FM Transmitter. Neither of the options mentioned charge your phone as you listen to it. The FM Transmitter idea is also bad in that it fades in and out, and more often then not, it is swamped by strng radio signals as you drive around.

The direct connection adaptor that I bought, a PA-NIS11 unit basically "add" an option to the CD button, making the radio think it is conected to a multiCD changer, thus make s your iPhone or iPod sounds like it is coming from a CD. Unfortunately, the unit I bought is only compatible with certain Nissan MaximaBose radios that DO NOT have the 6-CD changer built-in. Mine is, and thus not usable. I ended up installing that in Jan's car and it worked great there.

So I investigated of modifying the radio itself, so that it will switch input from CD to iPod/iPhone by modifying the circuit board and adding auxiliary input. I actually know how to do this, and even managed to get the schematic for my radio. Unofrtunately, all my electronic component parts are in Texas and it would take to much time sorting and finding what components I need to make this happen. lately I decided that I can use a generic FM modulator that mounts behind the radio, and switched out the car's antenna and inject the FM signal from the iPod/iPhone directly into the radio's antenna input. In theory, the signal should be so strong that no outside radio signal can interfere, and with the external antenna disconnected, the radio should only see the FM signal from the modulator. However, that does not provide the second thing that I want, that is being able to charge the iPod/iPhone as it is being used.

So, this week I've ordered a generic FM modulator ($20), an iPod/iPhone cable ($6) that on one end has a typical 30-pin connector and the other end has Audio RCA jacks, and a USB connector. I will first modify the FM modulator to add a 5 volt DC output using using an LM 7805 3-terminal regulator fromRadio Shack ($2) needed to charge the iPhone, and connect this output to a USB (female) connector ($3). So for under $50, I will soon have an interference free iPod/iPhone adaptor that will also charge my phone. Isn't that nifty?

I googled many places and have not been able to find something like the one I am about to do cheaply. I think there is a product called iSimple Gateway or iSimple Soundbyte, but they cost over $100.

Windows 7 Install, an update

2010-01-08T07:00:00.002-07:00

My attempt to install Vista SP1 (a pre-requisite for "updating to Win 7") failed miserably. I wasted at least 10 hours trying that effort. Microsoft has no clue on how to design a good software. Here's my two pet peeves:

1. If you already have an OS installed, and want to leap frog from current OS to go to the latest OS, why do I have to jump through hoops to install a Service Pack for an older OS that I no longer need?

2. Win OS install is known as notoriously take a long time to install (several hours) and for the average people require your attendance to enter "clicks" every so often, and then just near the end it would say, "oops, there has been an error of some sort, and rolling back the changes. Why can't these programmers do all the checks AHEAD of time, and not go through the motion of copying fies, creating restore points, installing stuff and then discover that it cannot go forward and have to roll back hours later?

I called Microsoft SP1 install support line (just shows you that many people must have encountered problem installing if they had to create a special link in their website to support this functionality!!!!!!). Mahendra took over control of the laptop remotely, and proceeded to go through the steps I already have tried, and was unable to install SP1. He suggested that I insert the original Dell OS disk (well, it didn't come with one, the OS is pre-installed). He said that one of the system file is corrupted. You'd think that Microsoft would know which file is bad, and say so when it does it's file scan, but Mahendra could not tell me. Mind you that at the time, the Vista OS laptop was working fine with no indication of any problem. One thing he suggested was to do a full/clean install of Win 7 without re-formatting, using the "Custom" option. I didn't know this capability and thus have not tried it prior to this time.

So I backed up all the data, did the custom install, and 3 hours later I was able to re-start and it came up with Windows 7. I then had to re-install all the apllications software, restore all data files and so far it is working fine.

One thing I do like is that Win7 is faster than Vista, and it eliminated the annoying screen blankings during boot up or waking up from sleep. In the past, when I opened the laptop froma sleep, I'd get the last window to pop up quickly, then it woudl blank out for a minute or so, pops up again for a second, blank again, for few more seconds, and finally ready to use. Of, the windows Media Player is much improved and had a built in menu for bringing up live TV, if you have one of those USB TV tuner. Vista was a dog performance wise, like the previous Windows intermediate products (ME, CE, 98, etc.)

Stupid Windows 7 Install

2010-01-03T20:58:00.002-07:00

During the Christmas break I bought Windows 7 upgrade for Jan's Dell Vostro 1400. This laptop came with Vista Home Basic, and I have never liked it, and prefer Windows XP. One of the annoying thing is that when you close the lid, open it sometimes later, the last desktop would pop up real fast, and then it goes blank dark for at least 30 seconds, before flashing back, goes blank again for a couple of seconds, then finally became usable again. As in XP though, you can't just continue surfing until the wireless cared re-establish iternet connection to the local network. With the MacBook, as soon as open the screen back up, within 5 seconds or so the system is ready to use. But I digress.

Today, I attempted to do a clean install without destroying the data. The instruction says to boot from the DVD and wait for the setup prompt. Well, guess what, it says I can't do it. To do that I need to boot back to the old Vista and start the setup from there and select upgrade.

I dutifully did that, the disk churned for a while, and for about 1 minutes it shows a windows that says copying files, and then it says "no can do". The laptop needs a newer BIOS version. Unfortunatey, somehow in the process, it got the wifi card confused and altough it was able to connect to my network, it cannot get access to the internet (Signal strength near 100%). I had to disable the card, re-enable it, and goes thru this cycle 4-5 times before it finally connected. I then downloaded and install the new BIOS firmware (version A09) which of course require a reboot.

I started the upgrade again, and after another 15 minutes, another error pops up saying that now I need to get Vista upgraded to SP1. What the heck? I don't care about SP1. I just want to get to Windows 7.

Having paid the money to go to Windows 7, I am now forced to go on, so as I type this, I am now waiting for the Vista SP1 to finish installing. The prompt says, it will take several reboots before it finishes.

I'd be curious what else it wants once I get past this hurdle. Elapsed time so far: 3 hours.

Indonesian Fruits

2009-12-06T18:18:00.004-07:00

The other day we stopped by H-Mart Grocery store and bought a single pomegranade fruit that Jan has never tasted. She was curious about this and wondered how it tasted. So, later that day I showed her how to open it, and inside the fruit there are cluster sections separated by a thin white membrane. The fruit contained clusters of red kernels separated by thin white membranes. The kernels are small tiny fruits each with a tiny seed within. It tasted mostly sweet with a little tartness to it. You can softly bite and suck out the juice, then spit the seed. It is too tedious to eat, but now she knows what that taste is like. The juice is almost similar to cranberry in taste, but sweeter. Needless to say, the numerous seed and lack of "meat" of this fruit is not it's selling point. Jan said that she's not going out her way to get it anymore. This strange fruit reminded me of the many, many fruits that I remember having eaten when I was still young in Indonesia. For example there is durian, which most every Caucasian find it dreadful. Even the strange food eater Andrew Zimmern (Bizarre Foods host) was unable to eat it because it has a very strong smell and take some getting used too. To me, it smells and tastes good. The smooth, sweet custard like meat is just delicious. They even make cookies, jellies, and drinks with those flavor. You can even buy the concentrated essence in oriental grocery stores, just like vanilla flavorings. Then there is the rambutan, a hairy, reddish fruit with sweet, translucent meat when you peel off the hairy skin. Another fruit is called nangka (English name is jackfruit). This fruit is used in two different ways. When it is still unripe, the meat is used in cooking as a vegetable, cut up in small cubes. When ripen, the meat is somewhat dry, but has a sweet smell and taste. And then there is mangosteen. This is a round fruit the size of a small apple, the bottom of it has a flower pattern image usually about 4-6 petals. As a kid, we used to "gamble" on it and we'd guess how many segments of wedges there are inside the fruit (doesn't always match the petal pattern). The meat is white, and it is juicy and very sweet. I haven't eaten this fruit in more than 40 years! For more info and pictures, see the link I posted below.

http://www.indoindians.com/food/indfruit.htm

Three days of tennis, back to back.

2009-11-30T18:59:00.002-07:00

On Thanksgiving day, after I put the turkey and turducken in the oven I was checking my email, and there was one from GaryO saying that he's got three people lined up and if I could come out and play. In 10 minutes, I was out the door heading to the tennis court. I got there and no one was around. So I wandered over to the club's gym, and found Gary exercising. Of course he dropped everything and we played single for about an hour. It turned out that I missed a keyword "tomorrow" on the email.

Friday morning I went there again and that time we do have a foursome. We played for about two hours and I was really worn out. At the end of the game Gary told me that he has recently written his third book, and to celebrate that, he and PaulF organized a Tennis Mixer at the Shores for next day, Saturday (which hadn't had one for years), that included a book signing event. He said a lot of the people I know will be there. So of course I couldn't pass that up.

Jan dropped me off at the club on Saturday morning and sure enough there were a lot of old friends that I haven't seen for a long time. I had a good time, my tennis is as bad as usual. We played four 8-game sets and I won only 1 out of 4 matches.

Later that afternoon, my left rib where the diaphragm is attached hurt really bad. I cannot cough, sneeze or even blow my runny nose without feeling a sharp jab. It took two days before I felt better (today). But, tennis is always a lot of fun. It was good to see my old friends still playing tennis.

No blog. Passed yesterday.

2009-11-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

Got sick on the way back from Dallas, went to bed at 630pm!

My Supra is still alive

2009-11-28T16:06:00.004-07:00

I haven't driven my Supra for almost a year, and the last time I drove it was to get it inspected. The inspection sticker expired in 12/2008. Unfortunately, at that time the place I normally took it to get the car inspected was not able to do the job because their dynamometer was down. Mine is a 1994 with 140K miles so it just missed the cut off date for inspection without dyno test. I think 1995 and newer are exempt because the car's internal computer logs the car performance as it is being driven. So I took it to another place, and they too couldn't do that inspection because some bozo in the shop evidently broke the cable on the pick up tool that sense the engine RPM. So I took it back home and the car sat in the garage for the past year.

Yesterday, I hooked up my battery charger to the dead batteries and today I checked it. After a little cranking action, the car fires back just fine. I put some air in the soft tires, drove it around the block and all seemed to be fine. I am glad this is going well. At least the next time I come home for the Christmas break, I maybe able to get it inspected and have a back up car to run around with.

Joy Luck

2009-11-27T20:02:00.002-07:00

I bet your first thought is the book titled Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan. You're wrong. In the past couple of years every time we come home from Denver we somehow managed to squeeze in a family dinner at a place called Joy Luck BBQ. Like the one I posted earlier about a BBQ place in Australia, JLBBQ is an authentic chinese restaurant replete with barbecued ducks, chicken whole prok roast and other entrails displayed in the front of the restaurant.

So today we ate dinner there. Jonathan was not able to be at the Thanksgiving dinner, and we use that excuse to eat ath JLBBQ so he can be there. This place is only a few miles from where he lives with his dad. It was god to be able to see home and spend sometimes with us. Maria also was there. Jen and Shea was planning to come too, but with Amy and her husband planning to drive back home to Houston, she ended up spending one more afternoon/evening with them today.

As usual, the food at JLBBQ was great and we enjoy and finish almost every dish we ordered. Unfortunatley, I forgot to take a picture of what we ate. Sorry.

Thanksgiving Day - what else is there to say but Turducken?

2009-11-26T20:54:00.002-07:00

Getting ready for tomorrow!

2009-11-25T19:46:00.004-07:00

We arrived home a little after 130pm today. Teddy and Paddy picked us up from the airport. Ate lunch at Five Guys in Southlake on the way home, and then we had a nice visit and dinner with the family. Brian and Maria drove in from Houston and we met them for dinner at a new seafood restaurant in Rockwall, called Catch-22. The food was good, but I wonder if they can survive much longer in the location they are currently in, doesn't seemed like they have much people traffic there.

After dinner, I de-boned a 14-16 lb turkey and will stuff that with stuffing tomorrow. Along with that, we'll also cook a 10 lb boneless turducken that Brian and Maria brought down. Dinner is set for around 1PM tomorrow. We'll have everyone but Lauren, Jonathan, and the Rozell family in the cold Alaska. We'll miss them at this family gathering. Lauren and Jonathan are with their other family members. We miss them all very much and pray that they are doing well tomorrow.

Family

2009-11-24T21:50:00.002-07:00

Thanksgiving is just a couple of days away, and I am going to use this opportunity to say how thankful I am for the blessings our Lord has been to me and my family. Since my arrival in the US over 42 years ago, I had been given the opportunity to get an education, a good job, a wife and kids, and even after the painful divorce, the Lord has given me a second chance with Jan. Through that ordeal, I was taught by our Lord to help those who are going through the pain that I experienced. It has been almost 5 years since Jan and I involved ourselves in the Divorce Care ministry. I am very blessed with the gifts of grandchildren, our children, and with the love that you all have for Jan and I.

Thank you Lord for everything.

CRT Coolant: Who would've thunk of that?

2009-11-23T19:28:00.007-07:00

We bought our rear projection TV (RPTV) several years ago, and since we moved (temporarily) to Denver, each time I went home I noticed that this TV is getting dimmer, redder, and the pictures looked terrible. The videos are really hazy, cloudy, and bright objects have this halo effect. See the pictures below. I got these pictures from the internet and cropped it, but mine looked just like it.

The last time I was home (early October), I took the back of the RPTV apart thinking that maybe the lens on each of the CRT guns (red, green and blue) are dusty after all these years. Sure enough, when I got to the lenses, they are covered with a fine layer of dust. I cleaned that up, and put everything back together. The TV picture looked much better than before, but it was nowhere near what it looked like when it was newer. Look at the pictures below after someone else did his coolant work. I hope to be able to do this too soon.

A few days ago, I decided to google "cloudy picture in rear projection TV". The result surprised me. I was thinking that maybe my cathode ray tubes (CRTs) may need to be replaced. But as it turned out this is a typical symptoms of CRT coolant getting contaminated, and the coolant developed growth that looked like algae. Who would have thought that a rear projection TV have coolants, and this coolant turned opaque because of some unknown growth?

Evidently, on this vintage of RPTV with CRT-based lamps, as opposed to liquid crystal display (LCD) projection TV, there are liquid coolants (ethylene glycol) in each of the CRT color guns that resides between the CRT face and the lens. This coolant protects the CRT from overheating and burning the phosphor coating. Ethylene glycol is the same basic liquid used in your car's radiator to cool the engine. For RPTV, the coolant is the clear variety. Someone explained that the coolant, in the presence of heat and contact with the metals that contained the liquid started to develop algae like substance, and thus changed the liquid from clear to opaque. Another interesting fact is that in almost all cases, the blue CRT coolant is the worse followed by the green CRT. The red, according to these folks, almost always is least affected. Thus the prevalent reddish color. So, after reading these articles and checking procedures on how to do it, I decided that I am going to try to correct this problem. I found an electronic supplier that charged about 9-10 dollars a a bottle plus about $9 in shipping. Then I found on eBay a seller that will sell me 3 bottles for $25, with free shipping. It is now being shipped directly to Rockwall, and I hope to be able to work on it during the Thanksgiving break. I will try to remember to take a picture of before and after.

Finally, I got Win XP SP3 working in my MacBook!

2009-11-22T07:26:00.006-07:00

Geek stuff, if you're not into computer nitty gritty, skip today's post.

Recall that I installed BootCamp (BC) partition in my MB after upgrading my hard drive to 500GB. Well I did a little more research into that and found that to be able to install SP2 (service pack 2) and Sp3, I had to do some registry editing on the Windows registry.

The Win XP disk I had was SP1 vintage, and evidently BC wants to start with Win SP2 before it can do its thing installing the Mac specific drivers.

So during the ensuing weeks after that initial install, I've been burning and throwing away several DVDs in an attempt to "slip-streaming" SP2 and Sp3 packages into my WinXP SP1 installer disk, on my trusty Dell 710m. That attempt to create bootable DVD failed miserably. I think I am almost there because the Mac attempts to boot from it, but I get the message that says: CDBOOT: Couldn't find NTLDR. I do have NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM in the root directory of that disk. So, I decided to go to another direction.

I am still able to boot into my Win XP in my MB, so last night I launched Firefox and searched for "Windows need 4MB ... to install Sp2". I found a discussion board that says I needed to:

1. edit the registry, and
2. to install the service pack using command line with "no backup" option

REGISTRY EDITING (while in Windows, not in Mac OSX obviously):

Go to Start -> Run, enter "regedit" in the command bar.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
\Setup
From the Edit menu select new entry
Give this new entry a name BootDir
Then right click an unselected part of the line and select Modify
Enter C:\

Exit out of the registry editing.

WINDOWS STUPID FILES:
Make sure you have NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM, OSLOADER.NTD, OSCHOICE.EXE in the root directory of your Windows HD (BootCamp partition, aka C:\ ).

Extract the SP2 and Sp3 files (assuming you have it downloaded and available in your HD)

Go to Start -> Run
Enter the command line "cmd" that birngs up the black command line window
In that window enter:
> c:\sp2_package /extract:c:\sp2files (NOTE this command assumes you have the Sp2 package in the root C;\ directory)
This command will then extract the SP2 files into the C:\SP2files directory
(BTW, windows "cmd" lines are not case sensitive, so you can actually type away
without care when you are doing this task.
Go to:
> cd c:\SP2Files\i386\update
> update.exe /n ( NOTE: for SP3, the command should be update.exe /nobackup )
The above step will bring up the typical Windows XP popup about agreeing to its ruke etc and install SP2 upgrade. You wll then be asked to restart. At this point you will have to press the "Option" key so it goes back to Windows.

Once you're back in Windows, download and install BCUpdateXP from Apple (or use your Mac OSX disk One if your BootCamp OSX disk is newer version). This time around, after some delays ( seemed like a minute with nothing happening but maybe less, the BCUpdateXP will install Apple specific drivers and after a restart, your Windows XP will say that you're now at SP2. Go through the same cycle with Sp3 upgrade!

So now, I have an MacBook with 400GB partition, running Snow Leopard, and a 100GB partition, running Windows XP Sp3. what am I gonna do with it? Not much, its just a technical challenge to keep my brain cells exercised.

About Australian Open - Part 2

2009-11-20T20:57:00.003-07:00

I was going to write more about the A.O. today, but am too tired to write. So this is my entry for the day. Come back later and I'l edit this one to add more. G'nite.

UPDATE:

Attending the AO was a fun event. Our time in Melbourne was pretty much spent at the Tennis Center and not much else. My memory is fuzzy, but I think we ordered the tickets to the tennis center online, before we left the US. As in the US OPEN (USO), tennis matches don't start till 11AM, and so we usually have a leisurely time for breakfast and then spent most of the daylight hours at the tennis center. Like in the USO, the ticket we held allows us to go into the tennis facility, any other tennis courts and matches, as well as an assigned seatings at the main stadium, Rod Laver Arena. (On the other hand, if you've ever been or plan to go to the French Open, you'll need THREE tickets every day to see any possible match scheduled for that day, one for Chatrier, one for Lenglen, and one for Court One).

The atmosphere is great, many people around dressed casually and in shorts, and lots of people with face painting, clowns on stilts, and lots of beer.

I am looking forward to scheduling another trip there, the Lord willing, and see much more of the beautiful (so I heard) Melbourne and the beaches.

About Australian Open - Part 1

2009-11-19T16:29:00.006-07:00

A few years ago (2004) I was on a work assignment in Australia around the time that bracketed the Australian Open. Knowing this, we went ahead and scheduled for Jan to fly out to Melbourne, and I would take a week off from my work to meet her there. We made reservation on a B&B close to the tennis center and I was to arrive there a few hours after Jan got to the B&B.

I thought our B&B reservation had been confirmed, but when Jan got there alone from the airport by taxi (after spending 19 hrs. getting there!), they told her that we didn't have a reservation! Needless to say, she was a bit irate and proceeded to inform the B & B management that she had just arrived from Texas and wasn't very happy! We were very fortunate that Aussies speak English and they are relatively friendly to Americans. The proprietor suggested she try another place 3-4 blocks away, so Jan got another cab and dragged her loaded 31" rolling duffle bag to that other place and fortunately was able to get a room. In the mean time, unbeknownst to me, I too took a taxi to the initial address and got the "sorry mate, we don't have anyone by that name registered here!" After patiently explaining to them that we thought we had a confirmed reservation, they remembered the American Jan and that they had sent her to another B & B. So I walked the extra blocks to the other place with my backpack and fortunately was able to connect with Jan. As it turned out, the B&B we stayed at was not that much different from the one we initially booked. In the picture above, our B&B is in upper right corner of the map. The tennis center is at the lower middle, and to thr right of it is the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), a new facility that was nearly finished when we were there.

Our first day there was spent exploring the Chinatown of Melbourne, within walking distance of the tennis center and the B&B. We found a small hole in the wall Chinese barbeque place called City BBQ. In the map, it is the one with the red droplet near the upper left.
.

As it turned out we liked the food there so much that we ate there every day! We only tried maybe 2 or 3 other restaurants the entire time that we spent in Melbourne! This place is very much like the First Chinese BBQ in Dallas, with many cooked ducks and marinated meats hanging by the window. Yummy. It was Chinese New Year's while we were there and we watched a Dragon Parade snake through the streets of China Town.

Our days would start by walking several block through the Fitzroy Garden to Little Bourke street, get some delicious meal, then took a free bus shuttle from the Business Center (Flinders Street) to the tennis center at Brunton Avenue. On another day, we would go south from the garden, cut across MCG parking lot and walk directly to the tennis center.

Part 2 tomorrow, at the tennis center.

Being a grandfather - is a joy!

2009-11-18T20:54:00.002-07:00

It seemed not so long ago that I told each of the kids that I am not ready to be called grandpa yet. I was in denial of my age and role in life. And then came Jacob, followed successively by Owen, Toby, Paddy, Sarah and Eric, and of course Jamiee. Now that I have become a grandfather so many times over, I realized that God has truly been good to me and has blessed me with a great family and life. I have to admit that I was wrong then. Every year since has been a joy to see them grow and accomplish many things and discoveries. I have enjoyed every minutes that I am with them, even when I have to change their diapers, or going through their terrible twos. I want you all to know that I am very thankful for everyone of you, for your love to each other, and for the great grand kids I have been blessed with, and for allowing me to get to know everyone of them. I love you all, and am looking forward to see more grandkids from you know who! Yes, you, you and you!

Another recipe day

2009-11-17T17:57:00.005-07:00

Pork and Napa Dumplings (image from the internet, not mine)

Ingredients

1 lb ground pork
1/2 Napa cabbage
2 fingers of fresh ginger
1 egg white
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 table spoon of corn starch
1 table spoon of onion powder
salt and pepper, as needed
2 table spoon Kikkoman soy sauce
Dumpling skin (the round ones, about 3-4 inch diameter, thawed).

Finely shred/chop the Napa cabbage, then using one table spoon of salt, continuously squeeze and drain the water that resulted from doing the squeezing. The idea is to remove as much of water from the Napa as possible. The salt will wash away as you do this de-watering. Skin and then grate the ginger using a grater. Mix the all the above filling ingredients by hand until they are well mixed.

Making the dumpling: take one sheet of the dumpling skin, and scoop about a teaspoon full of meat and place it in the center of the skin. Then wet the perimeter of the skin around the meat with water, and fold the skin in half. Pinch the edges in z-shape folds so they are like crimps. Set that aside in a lightly powdered tray. When you do this, press down on the meaty side so they form a somewhat flat bottom, crimps up. Now you're ready to cook them. There 3 ways to do that:
1. Deep fry them in oil till they are golden brown and floats
2. Put them in a non-stick pan, add about 1/2" of water, cover and let it steam until the water evaporates, then allow the bottom of the dumpling to brown slightly.
3. Boil it in lightly salted water, then remove from the water whne they have floated up.

Condiments for dipping: mix a table sppon of garlic chili sauce (see my previous blog, the bottle with green top), a squirt of lemon juice, and 3 table spoon of kikkoman sauce and mix.

Any recipe requests? Dish I know how to make and you have been waiting for the recipe?

The marathon and black Ice

2009-11-16T19:25:00.009-07:00

We flew home from San Antonio very early this morning, landing in Denver around 830am. The weekend we were in SA, the daytime highs were in the 70s, and Denver had about 9-10 inch of snow.

The marathon were well organized. I think they said over 30 thousands participated, with the majority in the Half Marathon. We parked at the AT&T Center, and took a free shuttle bus to the finish line. Once there, we walked to the 12 mile marker and waited for Lauren to pass us by. Jan subscribed to the Lauren race report, and every so often she gets a text message on her phone of Laurens progress. For example, after we left home and dropped Lauren off near the start line, we ate breakfast at Magnolia's Pancake house, and while there she received a text message saying that Lauren started her race at 8:32am. While waiting at that mile marker, we saw several racers with funny costumes. Here are a couple of examples:

And here's the one leading the race for the full marathon at 2:05 into the race, with a mile to go:

And second place:And here's Lauren a mile from the finish line. Her time was 2:30:29.

After we got back, we picked up our car, it was covered with snow. The roads seemed dry, so I got careless while clearing the snow from the car. I fell and slipped on a layer of black ice around the car. It didn't seemed bad at all at the time, but now, a few hoours later, my butt, my left arm and elbows are sore, all muscles though, no broken bones. . Ibuprofen to the rescue.

In San Antonio

2009-11-14T19:42:00.003-07:00

We flew here this morning and arrived just a little after lunch time. Went directly to the har salon where John, Lauren and jan all had haircuts. I was going to take a picture of the new "do", but didn't get chance to do that. For dinner we went to an Italian restuarant called Tre Trattoria. We had a nice meal and a great Italian wine. It went well with the family style rib steak that we ordered. Lauren and jan got the pasta Amatriama (or somehting like that.. ).

Anyway, tomorrow is the Rock & Roll Marathon and Half-marathon. Lauren will be doing the half. Along the way, I also saw on FB that Sheri Elam is heading down to SA, so I asked, and turned out she's doing the same half-marathon. Maybe we can meet up with her there.

Most Embarrassing Moment

2009-11-13T22:06:00.002-07:00

I've never been very good with machines or anything that's automated. That would include computers, photocopiers, fax machines, postage machines, especially VCR's, you get the idea! I'm especially afraid to try NEW machines and I usually won't try it until I absolutely have to.

When ATM machines came out, I was working in the NationsBank (now known as Bank of America) building which is the tallest building in downtown Dallas. I had received an ATM card from the bank, BUT since it was a machine, I vowed that I would never ever use it! Soon thereafter, they installed an ATM machine in the underground tunnel leading from the main building to the parking building. I walked by this ATM machine every day to and from my car. For weeks, maybe months, I walked by the ATM machine but I was too fearful to use it.

One day as I was going out for an early lunch, I realized that I didn't have any cash. I was late as usual and didn't have time to go to the main bank. I noticed that there wasn't anyone using the ATM machine as I approached it, nor was there anyone in the vacinity in either direction of the machine. So I whipped out my shiny ATM card. After several tries with the card, I finally inserted it correctly and proceeded to the next step. I was able to successfully put in the correct commands to actually receive some cash! I was so elated and feeling so proud of myself!

By this time, there was a line gathering behind me to use the machine. After I received my cash, I wanted my card back so when the machine asked me if I had any more transactions, I said YES! Well, I didn't know that I would get my card back once I let the machine know that I was finished. So I kept saying YES!

The line behind me was getting longer and longer and I was so flustered I was beside myself. Finally, some guy about 20 people back yelled, "Push NO"!!! He said it at the exact moment that I was about to push YES for the fourth or fifth time. So I pushed NO - out popped my card! I was so embarrassed that I didn't use that machine for a loooooonng time!

Motorcycles

2009-11-13T19:02:00.006-07:00

When I was just a teenager back in Indonesia, I had a small two-stroke bike made by a company called Zundapp. So I searched the internet and here's one that looked almost like mine, a Zundapp Super Combinette circa 1960, with 50cc engine. I don't remember how I got this bike, but I've taken apart my bike countless of times, and did all kind of repair work myself. Notice that the bike has no foot pedals, but in instead it has a crank pedals like a bicycle. Here's a link to avideo if you want to hear how it sounded: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkFIUo536eI

A few years ago, I bought a used Honda motorcycle from a co-worker. It was a classic and unique bike with drive shaft instead of chain, an Ascot Vt500, with only 6000 miles on the odometer. Look at the beautiful picture below. The one I have is the red one, just like you see here, and it has a front shield like the black one. I think

Food and some Random Pictures

2009-11-12T20:45:00.008-07:00

There are plenty of prairie dogs in Aurora, Coorado. This picture was taken not too far from where I worked. They are so cute.

On the way back down from going to Mount Evans, I saw this silhouette of the mountain goats. On the way up, they were just grazing by the side of the road, no fear of people or cars.

Churuscaria at Rodizios, in downtown Denver. Went there with Jan's nephews who were visiting us this past summer.

Corn bread at White Fence Farm. a family style fried chicken place.

One of the dim sum dish we ate last weekend in Denver's "china town". Actually though, there is no such area. However, the area we went to is about as close as I can call it china town as there are many chinese restaurants there. Also near the place where we were finally able to find a box of "Tung I Onion Flavor" ramen noodle.

PEPPERS AND SAMBALS

2009-11-11T06:53:00.008-07:00

The picture above is just a few collections of the condiments I have here at the apartment in Denver (Jan says that we actually have other kinds of hot sauces, but these are all I could find this morning when I lined them up to take the picture with my cell phone). I have a few more back in Texas. I grew up in a place where hot sauces are standard supplements to any meal, as common as ketchup, mustard, and mayo are to our meals here.

So, looking at the picture above, you see crushed red peppers, powdered red peppers, Frank's Lousiana Red Hots (regular, and extra hot), Chili sauce, Habaneros hots sauce, Sambal Djeroek, and Garlic Chili Sauce.

Like wine connoiseurs that know the difference between various white and red wines, to me, these hot sauces have different flavors that enhances certain foods. For example, we have a family dish simply called lemon fried chicken, and believe it or not, only one of the above hot sauces (Sambal Djeroek) fits the bill when it comes to making the chicken so unbearably good. On the other hand, ramen noodles is not compatible with the one we use with fried chicken. Some member of our family have to have the Frank's Louisiana Red Hot, and no other brand, not even Tabasco, which on the surface seemed pretty much the same. Ditto for egg rolls. So when you look at your fridge and see a collection of salad dressings, in our house, you'll find many different kinds of hot sauces.

STEAMED EGGS

The other night we made steamed eggs. What is it, you say? Well, here's what you do: In a mixing bowl, add 4-5 eggs, chopped scallions, a few dash of crushed red peppers, a dash of soy sauce, and 1/4th cup of water, and of course salt and peppers to taste. Make sure that the bowl is sufficiently high enough to allow this egg batch to rise as it steamed. It may go twice as high, and then deflate when you take ot out of the steamer. Steam the entire thing for about 15 minutes. As usual, enjoy it as is, or use it as a side dish.

Indonesian style chicken curry aka Opor Ayam

2009-11-10T18:17:00.009-07:00

Revised: 20091111: Forgot one additional ingredient: boiled eggs

OPOR AYAM
(Indonesian style chicken curry, without curry powder)

1 whole chicken, cut up in pieces
1 pack of the flavor shown, or make our own (see footnote)
6-8 potatoes, skinned and quartered
2 cans of coconut milk
2-3 stalks of lemon grass (the stalk part, cut off the leave top and root, then cut into 2-3 inch pieces)
1 pack of (mung) bean threads (optional)
water, salt and pepper as needed
3-4 tablespoon of olive oil
8-10 eggs (optional)

Boil the eggs for about 10-15 minutes, peel and set aside.
In a stew pot, brown the chicken pieces in olive oil then add the flavor mix, potatoes, salt, pepper and water till the chicken pieces are just covered. Add the boiled eggs, one can of the coconut milk and the lemon grass pieces, bring it to a boil and then simmer for 1-1/2 hour. Add the second can of coconut milk, and simmer an additional 10-15 minutes. If you opted to use the bean threads, add them at the same time you add the additional coconut milk. Serve over steamed rice, in a large soup bowl.

NOTE: If you can't get the flavor mixture where you live, make one yourself: chop half an onion, a few cloves of garlic, half a teaspoon of turmeric, a teaspoon of salt, pepper, and lightly blend.

If you use the Indo Food mix, the instruction says to boil the chicken for a while then add the flavoring. I find this to be silly. You want the chicken to absorb all the good flavors and cook in the mixture, so ignore the packet instruction.

The question that no one asked?

2009-11-09T18:44:00.005-07:00

Did you see the videos of this girl named Elizabeth Lambert playing dirty soccer match? After the video was broadcast many times over, she later apologized saying: "I let my emotions get the best of me in a heated situation."

My take: she apologized because she was caught red-handed. That kind of behavior does not just developed overnight. I am willing to bet that she has been playing dirty for quite some time. So the reason for the title of this blog is why haven't any of the news reporters asked the school/college officials, the coaches, and the people around her life the key question: how can they allow this to happen? The suspension didn't happen until it became a media frenzy. Was she such a star player that anything she did was permissible? The people that are responsible for allowing that behavior to develop are just as guilty.

And on to the next recipe.

FRIED SHRIMP DUMPLINGS

Ingredients:

1 lb of peeled and deveined raw shrimps
2 cups of flour
2 eggs
1 bunch of chopped scallions (cross cut, thinly)
1 table spoon of onion powder
1 teaspoon of garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
water, as needed, to dilute the mix.
Frying oil

Put all the ingredients in a mixing bowl, and add water a little at a time until the mixture is about the consistency of thick oatmeal (for lack of way to describe it :-) )

Heat oil in a fry-pan or 2-quart size pan, my guess is about 350 degree F. The oil should be about 2-inch or more high, so the fried pieces can be submerged and then float as it cooked.

Using two large table spoon, scoop one portion of the batter mix and try to get 1-2 shrimps per scoop, drop it in the hot oil by using the other spoon to slide the mix in to the hot oil. After the piece turned golden brown, scoop it out and let it cool down on a drain rack.

After the first piece is fried, check to see that they are fully cooked inside. If not, lower the heat a little before frying the next batch. Fry three or four pieces at a time.

Its best to serve this warm, and for a little kick, use Lousiana Red Hot sauce (a specific name brand) for dipping! It's just maahr-ve-lous!

Simple Meals

2009-11-08T17:15:00.002-07:00

Lauren got me to thinking that putting out recipes for blogging idea is a good one. So here are some simple recipes that our family has been making for some time now. Many of these simple foods are good for when you are homebound due to colds or have flu symptoms. They are fairly mild and warms the tummy.

GINGER CHICKEN

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, cut up in pieces, with the skin
1 clump of ginger (about 2-3 square inches), skinned and sliced cross wise about 1/2 inch pieces
salt and pepper to taste

Put the entire ingredients into a stew pot and add water so that it covers the entire item with about an inch or so of water covering the chicken pieces. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat and simmer for about two hours.

Serve over cooked rice in a soup bowl. Garnish with chopped green onion, or a dash of fried shallot. Bon Appetit.

RICE PORRIDGE

Ingredients:

1 cup of uncooked rice
8 cups of water
1 chicken buillion cube
Shredded pieces of left over chicken meat (optional)
Pieces of julienned (sp?) chinese wood ear mushroom (optional)

Garnishes:

Chinese fried bread (optional, sliced cross wise, 1/4 inch thick, can be bought in Oriental grocery store, frozen)
Chopped green onion
Kikkoman soy sauce
Chili Garlic hot sauce (Tuong ot toi Vietnam)

Boil the entire ingredients, then lower heat to simmer, and stir often to prevent burning and sticking of the rice to the bottom of the pan (non-stick pan suggested).
They are done when the mix is the consistency of a watery oatmeal.

Serve in a bowl, garnish with the above ingredients. Go gentle with the hot sauce.

Coming to a blog near you soon: shrimp wonton soup, pork and napa dumplings, fried shrimp dumplings, egg rolls, opor ayam (I think I blogged on this a year or two ago), and maybe gado-gado (Indonesian salad with peanut sauce).

Downsizing?

2009-11-07T19:18:00.002-07:00

Someday, Jan and I will move back to Dallas area, and we've been talking about downsizing. It has been so convenient to be able to just set the thermostat to a minimum, lock the door, and be gone for an extended time without worries and maintenance of anything.

Every time I come home to Texas, I'd look at the pile of junk I have and work that needs to be done and I get depressed (well not really) seeing how much of this stuff I really need to get rid of. In the 3-car garage, there are stuff in boxes that had moved with me from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Milford, Massachusetts, and now in Rockwall, Texas. Some of these boxes have never been perused, so why am I keeping all these stuff? There are cans of paint that I know I will not use again. Why is that still in the garage?

Then I have a motorcycle that have not been driven for a few years, and the carbs are now gummed up. The last time Teddy and I looked at it and try to get it started, it won't even fire. My friend here offered to pick it up for me (he's driving his truck from Denver to Texas and said he can swing by to pick it up). But the registration expired a few years ago, no longer insured, and I really to have to have someone tuned it up to get it in running condition again. I can do it, but don't have time nor place to work on it here in Denver. With winter coming up perhaps that is not a good idea.

I also have a TOY car that has not been started in almost a year. I think it will start up just fine if the battery is charged, but the inspection sticker has expired. The last time I tried to get it inspected, the place I took it to had a broken inspection computer, thus it never got inspected. I think I am going to post it in CL during this Christmas break and see if there is a "rice boy" interested in buying it.

Then, there is house maintenance. Some rooms have never been painted since we moved into the house in 1986. The deck leaked and needs to be fixed. It needs a new staircase (been thinking of installing a circular stairway). Teddy and Mel have done a good job keeping the house in order and fix little things before they get worse, and he had fixed the plugged air conditioning drain tube and rotted celing underneath that unit.

And lastly, we want to replace the outdated formica kitchen counter top and replace the carpeting in the living room and family room with laminated wood. So much work to do.

Once all that is done, Jan and I will begin to look for a smaller house nearby and downsize. I can't understand people that are near retirement age and bought a much bigger house. It just doesn't make sense.

MER

2009-11-07T07:24:00.004-07:00

About a month ago Jan and I went to a Marriage Enrichment Seminar at the Navigator's facility called Glen Eyrie. It is a beautiful place, in an area near Colorado Springs next door to a place called Garden of the Gods. There were 8 couples altogether, and we had a very intensive meetings and discussions. Today we met again as a follow up and the topic was on personality/behavior. We filled in a form that classify our personality type. Here are a couple of pictures of that facility:

The result of my self analysis says that I score highest in D, then C (next highest), then S, and lowest in I (Dominant, Conscientiousness, Steadiness, and Influenceness.) Does that surprise you?

Jan will add hers later (maybe).

St. Mary's Glacier, Idaho Springs, CO

2009-11-05T17:22:00.010-07:00

Two weeks ago Jan, another couple from our Sunday School and I went hiking to the St. Mary's Glacier, near Idaho Springs, CO. I've never thought that there would be a glacier here in Colorado, especially at the end of Summer. But, as you can see from the pictures here, its real and it is not that far from Denver. The drive to Idaho Springs took about an hour, then we had to hike uphill for about a mile to the glacier. When we left Aurora, the temperature was in the mid 50s, and by the time we started our hike, it was snowing and the temperature dropped to below freezing. The glacier itself is located at 11325 feet above see level, according to my iPhone's Motion-X GPS. Enjoy.

"She's With Me!"

2009-11-04T20:53:00.002-07:00

My mother passed away in January and she was not a believer. So I spent the last 3 weeks of her life praying by her bedside that the Lord would give me the courage and words to share the gospel with her. In her last week of life, I got some guidance from my pastor and he gave me the courage and the words to say. So I shared with my mother some of the wonderful things Jesus had done in my life. But I had to tell her in English - she didn't speak English! I wasn't sure if she got it.

After she passed away, I continued to pray that God would intercede and have mercy on my mother and take her to heaven. For 4 months I continued to pray for His intercession and mercy and wonder if my mother was in heaven. Then one Sunday morning just before Mother's Day, I was sitting in church listening to a lady sing a solo about how God intercedes for us. While she was singing, I felt this glow and warmth around me and I could see God looking down on me and He said, "She's with me."

Hugs for Heroes

2009-11-03T18:19:00.004-07:00

Jan and few ladies from our church have been busy preparing an event called Hugs for Heroes (HFH), to take place this coming weekend. The event is to honor our American heroes serving in the military anywhere in the world, and the families of these men women that are members of our church. Since we do not have any family member serving the military branch, we've adopted Mike and Joe Hughes (Maria's brothers) as our honorees. They are US Marines currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jan and I have been busy getting songs (from iTunes) and making a patriotic playlist to be played during the HFH dinner, and ordering and re-ordering the songs. For some reason just a few minutes ago, Jan accidentally deleted the playlist, so she is now starting over. Luckily, its just the playlist, not the songs theselves. During the morning service that Sunday, the pastor will be blessing the care packages that will be sent to our servicemen/servicewomen associated with the church members, wherever they are located.

THANK YOU to all American servicemen and women and their families for your sacrifice and your life to preserve our freedom. May God bless you and the USA.

BootCamp - not ready for primetime

2009-11-02T19:16:00.003-07:00

When I first got the macBook last year, I attempted to install Win XP but never got it to boot at all. Last month, I upgraded my HD to 500GB, so I thought I'd give it another try. First I partitioned the HD into two part, giving the Mac 400GB, and Windows 100GB with BootCamp. However, right of the bat I already knew something was wrong. Windows XP wants the HD to be formatted as NTFS, but BootCamp only supports FAT32. Thus it was a no starter from the beginning. I went ahead and installed WinXP following the BC instruction, but at the end, Windows will not boot correctly. I think part of the issue is that MacOS still have not been able to write to NTFS partition.

So I took the HD out from the Mac, and using a USB carrier, I hooked that up to my Dell and format the 100GB partition to NTFS. Then I put the HD back into the Mac. Relaunch BC, and proceeded to install WinXP. It went to completion, including the reboot afterwards. Then I was supposed to insert Mac OSX Disk One for the Apple drivers. No Go. Unfortunately, the XP installer I had was of ServicePack1 vintage, and BC does not like that version. It complained about not finding 'UPDATE', or something to that effect. So, copied the Apple driver folder from the Apple disk to the Windows HD. I then individually installed the drivers for the video, trackpad, audio, wireless card, etc. That step got most of the functionality to work from Windows in my Mac. But, keyboard volume control, complete shutdown, and a couple other function did not work. I then downloaded SP2 (and for good measure SP3 service packs).

Invoking the Sp2 did not work, it says I don't have enough disk space, and need a mere 4 MB more. My gosh, I know I had at least 80GB disk space available. So something is wrong here. So the next thing I did was to download Apple's BC 2.1 upgrade. This too failed to launch and install, saying that it could not find ordinal 264 in msi.dll something.

So after wasting almost 8 hours of work doing all that, I thought about "slipstreaming" SP2 into my Windows XP SP1 install disk. I spent the better part of last Friday and Saturday trying to do this, and made several CD and DVD coasters (in other word: un-usable trash disks). So far I have NOT been able to make these new disks bootable.

On hindsight, the fact that I have to reboot the Mac to switch OS is not the way to go. I've contemplated of trying Parallels, but I am not sure if this is even worth the effort. So for now, I just have to switch laptops if I need to run some utilities that only exist in the Windows world. I also installed CrossOver in the Mac, but I don't like the way it intercepts Win applications by creating "bottles". It semed too slow and confusing. That's it for today, November Two.

First entry for NABLOPOMO 2009

2009-11-02T06:48:00.003-07:00

Another attempt at BootCamp ...

Since going back to my roots (original Mac Classic, to PC then now to MacBook), I've been trying to get BootCamp with Windows XP to work. I can now boot to XP and most of the functionality worked, e.g., audio, wifi browsing, video resolution, etc., but some other function such as complete shutdown or volume control from keyboard are still not working. I'll do a write up soon to finish today's late blog. Stay tuned.

Four laptops with four different OS

2009-04-05T21:02:00.002-06:00

1. My Dell Inspiron 710m running Windows XP sp3

2. My MacBook running Mac OS X 10.5.6

3. My IBM Thinkpad X40 running Ubuntu 8.10 (Linux)

4. Jan's Dell 1410 running Windows Vista Home

Maxima CD Error F0 Fixed!

2009-03-21T12:06:00.005-06:00

I was working on my 2002 Maxima BOSE radio with internal 6CD changer, in an attempt to see if I can add an AUX input for my iPhone/iPod. Along the way, I removed the radio from the car, and started to trace down the main printed circuit board to find where the audio input were for the CD, TAPE and AM/FM. I found that there are several place marked AUX IN, unfortunately, the components associated with this port were not installed, so I think that I can not just add a wire to these holes and expect to be able to drive the iPod/iPhone audio signal to go though the radio selector, so I have to do it another way.

In doing these tracing, one of the CD already in the unit (there were 4) slid out unexpectedly, and I didn't think it was a problem. Wrong! When I hook the radio back up to the car, the CD changer made an attempt to play the CD that was in slot that no longer had a CD (the one that fell out) and I immediately got a "CD ERROR FO" (that's a zero) code on the radio display. I googled, and everyone said that I am toast and that I need to have it fixed or replaced, to the tuned of $300-2000. I took the radio back out, and opened the cover over the CD changer unit. I found the problem: The moving laser head that reads the CD is jammed hard against the multi-disk separator and cannot be moved out of the way. In the picture you see that one of the separator is angled downward and is sandwiched by the laser read head arm and disk top clamp. I carefully uncouple the head unit from the separator, making sure that I do not bend anything to prevent misalignment. The photos in this blog shows the various stage of jammed to free state. Along the way, I lost one of the pins that holds the multi-disk separators, and I fashioned a replacement using a small screw almost the same length. I filed the threads off to make it slide freely like the other one.

I also carefully removed the remaining CDs that are still inside the unit, and the entire multi-disk tray then dropped down to their lowest levels. I put everything back together, and back into the car. My CD ERROR FO is now gone!

More story later when I attempt to hook up the PA11-NIS iPod adapter. Its on order. Everyone says it will not work for a Maxima with integrated 6CD changer. We'll see.

MagSafe Repair

2009-03-11T20:56:00.005-06:00

I recently bought a broken MagSafe power adapter for the MacBook on eBay with a frayed cable at connector end for $19.01. I wasn't sure when I bid on it that the brick is still good or not, but I thought it was worth a chance to safe a bunch of Moola when compared to Apple's price.

Step 1: Cut of the plug from the cable at the frayed end. On the cable end I strip about half an inch of the outer insulation and found that the cable only has two conductors, the center one being the positive side. Plugged in to a wall outlet, the voltage measured 6.5 Vdc. I thought to myself, hemh, it should have read 16.5 volts. So I CAREFULLY checked the voltage of my other MagSafe and it too measured about 6.5 volts, with no load. Based on that I guessed that the brick is probably ok.

Step 2: Using a small vise grip on the metal/magnetic part, I carefully slide the white portion of the MagSafe connector off from the magnet. Then I slit one end of the whitish translucent insulation cover that surrounded the small circuit board. I carefully peeled that off from the metal plug/circuit board. This step exposed the three part of the wires, one being the positive center wire, the other two are split ground wires.

Step 3: I removed the old broken pieces of wires from the now exposed circuit board.

Step 4: Insert two different size of heat shrink tubings on the cable end of the power adapter, then the white outer cover of the MagSafe. I split the ground wire into two bundles. On the center wire (white sleeved) I stripped about 1/8th inch of the insulation. The wire ends are then soldered as shown in the picture.

Step 5: Put all the pieces back together and test it. Notice that the green and subsequent orange glow of the LEDs indicated that all is well.

Step 6: Slide the smaller diameter heat shrink towards the plug and shrink it. Next the larger diameter heat shrink and shrink that too.

I don't know how to label and sequence the pictures in this blog, but you can see the progression of each step in the attached pictures.

Dim Sum in Denver

2009-02-08T08:08:00.005-07:00

Since living in Denver last year, we've been on a quest for a good chinese food and have not found a really authentic chinese food restaurant. We (actually Jan) would surf the net and search for reviews and then we'd go there and found disappointments. Yesterday was different. We found this dim sum place and Jan wanted to try it. We drove there, and as we were getting close to it, we realized that we've been in that shopping area before and was beginning to feel uncertain and was prepared for another disappointment. But tucked away in the middle of rows of various stores we found a nondescript restaurant called Super Star Asian Cuisine. The parking lot in front of them were full and it was a little after 1PM. Good sign. Walking inside, we found the place full with the patrons mostly Chinese/Asian. and had to wait for about 15 minutes before we were seated. I think we finally found a jack pot.

For you that have never tried dim sum style meal, it is a unique experience of eating Chinese food. Once seated, you just wait for the various food carts to come to you, and then you point and select whatever food plates on display that interest you. The server will then serve it to you and put a check mark in the order sheet for every item you ordered. These food items typically varies from $1.95 per plate, on average, and some more exotic dishes costing more. The idea is to try different different things and just nibble away on the various dishes until you're full. Because they are served in small portions, and the food carts come quite often, before you know it, you'll have ordered and eaten much more than you thought you have. Here's a sampling of the food we ordered yesterday.

Egg plant with shrimp topping, chicken feet, steamed bun with barbeque pork, sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf, and a few others I can't name. They were all good.

Another example of American car stupid design

2009-01-31T19:40:00.005-07:00

I rented a car this week in Dallas, and it is a late model Dodge Caliber. The left turn signal was clicking very rapidly, and from my experience it meant that one of the turn signal bulb filament is burned out. I verified that and determined that the rear left bulb was bad. In my previous cars, this is an easy thing to fix. Just open the trunk door, remove the tail light access panel and the bulb socket is usually easy to pulled out for bulb replacement.

Since we are still using this Dodge Caliber car for a couple more days and for safety reason, I decided to go ahead and replace the bulb myself. I happened to have the exact bulb needed in the garage.

In this Dodge Caliber, there is no access door to the tail light back side. The tail light is not held by screws, but held on by a couple of plastic wedge push on clip that spreads out as the center post is pushed in. This pin wedge thing broke up in pieces when you attempt to pull/pry out the center post. So why do Detroit engineers do this and perpetuate their incompetent design and poor engineering? Why not use a couple of screws to hold the tail light so it is easily removed to access the bulbs. Better yet, why not provide a tail light cut out/access panel so you don't need any tools to replace these tail light bulbs? Any import cars that I ever had always provide this access panel. Why can't Detroit be smart an be consumer friendly? Filament based light bulbs are bound to go out sooner than later. This is so stupid! Needless to say, the tail light is back on, but since the holes for this plastic thing are so big and the original clips are in pieces, I don't have any way of securing the tail light assembly properly. So it is now held in place by a couple of those rubber tire plugs.

Oh, one other thing. Before replacing the bulb, whenever the car is just started and driven, when I turned on the left turn signal for the first time within a few seconds later you hear a "chime". I didn't make the connection of this fact until later, and the manual didn't even have an index of the keyword chime or warning. I think the car's computer is programmed to recognize that one of the turn signal bulb is bad, but how would the average person know what this chime meant? Nothing on the dashboard indicated that something is amiss.

Plane, Train and Automobiles (well, not the train)

2009-01-29T19:45:00.002-07:00

We had a plane reservation to go to Dallas for Tuesday late morning, and the plan was to get to Dallas that day, drive the next morning to Shreveport for Jan's mom funeral service.

At 9am that morning, Jan got a computer generated phone call from Southwest saying that our flight was canceled. They did not offer an alternative. So, after I got back from printing the funeral brochure we started looking for alternatives. The next 3 flights from SWA was also canceled. However, after some pleading, the agent talked to her supervisor, and managed to book us up for the 520pm flight. She told Jan to get to the airport as soon as possible, at least 3 hours early. Since we are not sure if that too will be cancelled, and knowing that if we can get to Dallas earlier we would have a better chance of driving to Shreveport the same day, we decided to also check with American Airlines. On the AA website none of their flights to Dallas showed any cancellation, so Jan called them, and after a 10-15 minute wait, we got an agent who promptly told her that most of their Dallas flights were also canceled. We then called the car rental agency in Dallas about our delayed arrival.

At the Denver airport, we hung around for our flight, and saw a couple of Dallas bound flights that were still on, but since we have already checked our baggage for the SWA schedule, we waited. At around 430pm the SWA public announcement mentioned that the weather in Dallas is getting worse, and to be prepared for getting stranded in Tulsa or remain in Denver. Well, we have a funeral to go to, besides are bag will end up in Tulsa if we didn't go, so we waited and finally boarded. The flight to Tulsa was un-eventful, and about 15 minutes before we landed, the flight attendant (Dallas based) told us that we'd probably will be able to continue to Dallas. That was a relief, since we knew that they too wanted to go home.

Two people boarded in Tulsa, and we continued on to Dallas. Once near DFW just as we were descending, we saw no visibility from the side windows due to freezing rain. Once or twice we saw some clearing and can see the lights below, but the pilots handled it well, and we landed safely around 930pm. By the time we got to the baggage carousel, our bags were already there. Hooray for SWA efficiency. I've never experience that with any other airlines.

We then took the courtesy bus to Thrifty rental car. It took us almost 45 minutes to get a dingy Dodge Caliber that reeked with cigarette smoke, manual window crank, and a drive shaft that in my opinion is out of balance as it goes wump wump wump as we drove it. The rental agent reminded me of Steve Martin watching the airline agent tapping on her computer and staring at the screen for what it seemed an eternity. Ditto here, and I even made a snide comment saying, you must have a really slow computer there. In any case, we made it home, swapped cars with Melissa's Nissan Xterra, picked up Lauren and Jonathan who were already waiting there. By that time it was past 11pm, and we left Dallas in freezing rain towards Shreveport.

Just past Tyler, the freezing drizzle turned to rain, and by the time we reached Shreveport, it was 2 am, and the local temperature was 36°F. We were so relieved that we made it there safely, and thank the Lord for keeping us save. We checked into a hotel, slept for about 4 hours and was able to be at the funeral on time.

January - an Update in Memory of Sue Gow

2009-01-24T19:14:00.006-07:00

As mentioned in my previous blog, Jan went to Charleston to spend whatever time she has left with her mom. It has been weighting heavily in her heart that her mom have not been saved, and a couple of days ago, while she was alone with her mom, she just held her hand and talked about Jesus and prayed with her, and said her goodbyes. Last Sunday, our pastor preached about the steps of being a christian that consists of accepting the Savior's gift, followed by desire to fellowship, then desire for sharing and compassion, and from there to evangelism. The latter is not fire and brimstone, but to share your good news. It is then up to the Lord to working in that person soul for salvation of him or her to occur. Our evangelistic duty is to pass on our knowledge and faith to those who have never heard the Good News.

Today, her mom passed away peacefully, and we prayed that she heard the words and promise of our Lord and internally accepted Him as her Savior.

Since her deceased husband was buried in Shreveport, LA, Jan and her siblings are planning to bury her there, alongside her husband. It will take place on Wednesday, January 28 at Forest Park Funeral Home, 1201 Louisiana Ave, Shreveport, LA 71101 (318-221-7181)

May the Lord have mercy on her.

January

2009-01-19T20:36:00.004-07:00

It's been a while since I blogged, and truthfully, there is really not much going on that are worth writing about, but, regardless, here is my blog for the month.

Since the beginning of the year, I've been busy with work and planning for the Divorce Care program at our church, Mississippi Ave Baptist Church. If you recall, last summer we started this program at the church and have had amazing attendance, considering that summer months are usually slow month for DC. As a matter of fact, most churches skipped summer altogether, as they do in Garland, Texas. From the inquiries we received, we decided to offer two DC sessions this time around, one on Wednesdays and one on Sunday afternoons. Our first sessions started this past week and we have 5 people last Wednesday and 3 on Sunday. Several people called and say they wanted to come but could not make it on the first week. So it seemed that we will be doing both sessions after all.

One week after we got here from our Christmas/New Year break in Texas, Jan had to leave for Charleston, SC to be with her mother who just had surgery to repair a ruptured intestine. She spent a week there, and now we are dealing with her will to live. It seemed that she has given up on living, and barely ate or drink. She is currently under Hospice care, and they are allowing her to stay there for a maximum of thirty days. We hope that you will be able to pray for closure on this uncertainties and her future. Jan wanted to witness to her about our Lord Jesus, but with her mom's limited understanding of English, she wasn't able to do so. So we are now just waiting daily for whatever will happen.

Work wise, while Jan was away, I've been working extra hours on most days, and sleeping early at night. I was usually in bed around 9pm. This week though is the beginning of Australian Open, and ESPN2 has been carrying daily broadcast of that event, so I've been sleeping much later.

That's it for now. At the end of January we will be flying back to Texas to greet our soon to be born 7th grand child, Eric Baggett!!!

Kroketjes

2009-01-02T07:37:00.004-07:00

Last week Jan attempted to make mashed potatoes by putting the boiled potatoes in a blender. It came out gooey like a pasty glue, and a thought immediately came to my mind: kroketjes.

Kroketjes is a Dutch finger food (well, European to some people), and I haven't eaten this thing in over forty years. So the other day, I pulled out my old, old Indonesian recipe book written in Indonesian (I googled this book, and a European antique book dealer wanted USD50 for the two volumes) and recipe no. 151 is for how to make kroketjes. With my rusty ability in reading Indonesian, I made this dish and it tasted just like I remembered it. Here's the recipe in English:

Ragout filling, allowed to cool in the refrigerator
(some ingredients mentioned in Pandai Masak omitted, e.g., Lidah asin = salted tongue?).

Ingredients:
1 skinless boiled chicken breast, chopped up finely into 1/4 inch cubes
1 Carrot, skinned and chopped up finely into 1/4 inch squares
1/4 cup of finely chopped onion
1/3 cup of flour
1/2 stick of butter
Milk
Powdered nutmeg
Salt and pepper, as needed.

Saute the onion in butter until translucent, then add the remaining ingredients except the milk for a few minutes, then add milk a little at a time until the mix is similar to the consistency of mashed potatoes. Add a pinch of nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste, as needed. Set it aside and let it cool down.

Kroketjes

Ingredients:

Mashed potatoes, the kind that are gooey and sticks together (quantity: well how many do you want to make, assuming large egg sized pieces?)
2 cups of bread crumbs
2 eggs
2 egg whites (for coating, see instruction)
salt and pepper, as needed
Frying oil

Mixed the two eggs with the mashed potatoes (as a binder agent), add salt and pepper as needed.
Using a greased hand/palm, using a spoon scoop a small amount of the mashed potatoes on to your left palm, make a depression into this portion, scoop a small ragout filling into it, and cover it with another small scoop of more mashed potatoes. If your right palm is also greased, you can then make a small oval ball the size of a large egg. Roll this kroketjes into the egg white, then into the bread crumbs, thus covering the entire kroketjes with bread crumbs. Do the egg and bread crumb rolling twice and set it aside on a tray.

Fry the kroketjes in a medium deep pan oil (at least 2 inch of oil), 2-3 at a time) until golden brown. Turn it once or twice to get both halves evenly brown.

Serve on a small plate with yellow mustard for dipping. Ummh, so good.

Side note: Jan saved the gooey mashed potatoes for me, and started over with the correct type of potatoes (russett), and NO blender, just mashing tool. It turned out better, that time around.

Wiped out!

2008-12-29T18:16:00.004-07:00

I started loading the window drivers today from the MacBook disk, and it says my Win XP needs to be at SP2. I downloaded that update and proceeded to install. I have 27 GB available, and during the the update installation, that installer said, oops, I need 4MB more space to continue, and then it bailed out. I thought, what the heck, how much room does SP2 need? I deleted some stuff and made about 100 more MB available. Started the SP2 update again, and the same stupid error message showed up. I was so mad, I rebooted into Mac OS, brought up Boot Camp Assistant, and wiped out the Windows partition.

Later I googled for this SP2 (and SP3) error message, and it turned out that I had to manually perform a Windows registry edit to get pass this problem. Mind you, most article says that registry editing must be done carefully. I've done quite a few registry edits,so this not hard thing to do for me, but Microsoft Windows is so stupid. Why doesn't the updater make sure that it really need that space, especially since it went through the motion of checking available disk space for several minutes. But, I am beginning to realize that the sooner I gave up on installing Windows, the better off I am. I'll just keep my Dell 710M as backup machine in case I need to use Windows.

For those that insists to try, here's how I get Windows to install and not get that dreaded message: "Disk Error, press any key to restart." which doesn't really work anyway (Step 3 below is the secret!).

1. Partition your disk using BootCamp Assistant
2. Install Windows XP using an installer disk that gives you the option to REFORMAT that partition.
3. Select that partition, and DO REFORMAT that selected partition (the one that BOOTCAMP created). It will rename the drive "untitled". If you select FAT32, Mac OS can later read/write to it. If you select NTFS, Mac can read from it, but not write to it.
4. Proceed to install and then it will reboot by itself. Unfortunately, you're not done.
5. Turn the Mac power to off (holding the button for several seconds). Turn it back on, while pressing the OPTION key. This will give you a selection on which OS to boot from.
6. Select Windows HD icon, not the Windows CD Installer, an hit Enter.
7. The partial Windows that's already installed will then boot up and ask for the Windows CD.
8. If it is already in the drive, it will resume Windows installation for yet another 20-30 minutes or so.
9. Then it will interactively ask a lot of questions before finally give you the "Tour" menu.
10. Now you got Windows in your Mac. But believe me, it is not worth it.
11. And now you still have to install the drivers so Windows can recognize the Mac components.

Have fun!

Success - the pictures tell the story

2008-12-28T19:30:00.002-07:00

Home Bound

2008-12-19T21:48:00.002-07:00

We're busy packing stuff. Me, my computers, my other electronic toys, and chargers. Jan is packing snack food, clothing (like we need it back home when we already have plenty left behind initially...) , books, and a few presents.

Tomorrow we'll begin our trek, first heading south on I-25 towards Raton, NM, then veer southeasterly towards Amarillo on Highway 87, and then east on I-40, and finally south towards Dallas. We don't know yet whether we'll make it in one day or stop for one night along the way. Either way, we'll call and let you know when we know. :-)

A few more days in Denver, then HOME for the rest of the year!

2008-12-17T06:49:00.002-07:00

This weekend Jan and I will be driving home (yes, driving) so we don't have to rent a car back in Texas. We also will be able to bring stuff home, and later, to bring a few more stuff from home such as our pressure cooker. It would be costly to pay AA baggage fees to do all that nowadays.

And to add to that joy, I also received my repaired Mac from Apple yesterday. Recall the efficient service Apple provided to me a couple of years ago, and then to Steph just last year? Well, I must say that Apple Company service is still a gold standard for any company to follow. I called about the "dead" MacBook, and the next day an empty shipping box arrived, with labels attached for shipping, and the tapes to seal it. They even provided the FEDEX instruction for them to pick it up. Less than a week later, the computer that I am using to type this blog is that repaired MacBook. It looked brand new. I forgot how user friendly a Mac is after using my trusty Dell 710m for a few years.

I tried to install Window XP with BootCamp Assistant, and before doing so the instruction said to print out the installation guide. I clicked print, and it immediately knows that my printer (networked) is the Samsung CLP300N, and without fuzz or complain, printed the BootCamp direction. No driver installation needed. Not so with Win XP or Vista.

Window install on the other hand is not yet successful, not because of the Mac but because Window install is a pain in the *#% and I plan to try it again later. My score so far is 0 for 2 on that subject. The details is for another blog topic.

Colder than Fairbanks!

2008-12-16T06:19:00.002-07:00

Last Saturday I was still running errands in my shorts cuz it got to 55 degrees F. But then it started snowing on Sunday morning, and by early Monday morning, the recorded low at the Denver airport was -17 degree. Well, here it is Tuesday morning, and my iPhone Weatherbug (thanks Mondi) said that last night the low was -6, and currently at 0 degree. Fairbanks on the other hand had a low and current temperature of +2 degrees F.

Note: MacBook on the way home, currently at the Denver sorting facility (as of 0620 Local).

Taking it apart

2008-12-07T22:06:00.004-07:00

Flash Update: Apple is sending a box for me to mail it back to them so they can fix it under warranty. Hooray!

Got my broken MacBook back a couple of days ago. The battery was totally discharged, so I plugged it in and let it charge until it was 100%. I then turned the power on, and the screen lit up, and I got a Flashing Folder icon with a question mark and it stayed powered on. I thought to myself, "aha!", the logic board is really not bad, since it knows that there is no hard drive (I removed it before sending it out for the failed repair). So I powered it down and installed the hard drive, but sadly, it was back to staying powered on with or without hard drive.

I then started to ponder a bit and checked Apple's website. I entered my MacBook serial, and it was still under warranty till September 2009.

I think I am going to call them when I get back to Dallas and have them fixed it soon. In the mean time, I thought I would try one more time to fix it. I check and clean every part of the main chassis and try again to see if it would fix itself. See the picture I've posted.

After I made sure everything looked ok and clean, I put everything back together, and the laptop still will not power up. I am missing something simple here, but darn it, I don't know why it booted up to the folder icon ONCE and now it won't do that anymore.

Paddy and Owen

2008-12-03T22:12:00.004-07:00

I took a few pictures of Paddy and Owen using my new toy, a Woot impulse purchase. So here's a couple of sample pictures of Paddy and Owen.

My new toy is a Pentax Optio M50 with 5X optical zoom.

MacBook Saga continues

2008-12-02T18:14:00.003-07:00

I got a phone call from the repairman Greg yesterday, and he said: "The logic board is burned up pretty bad, he can't fix it, but .... for a mere $450.00 he'll replace it, including labor and shipment." I asked him to ship it back to me un-repaired in the same condition as I had it shipped to him.

I didn't like the sound of his explanation, since his premise was $200 if he can fix it, or he'll return it to me (at my cost to ship it back, which I understood and expect to). I have previously taken my logic board off from my MacBook, and I did not see any visible damage. So I went back to his eBay advertisement and check out the people that gave him good ratings (the past 2 months). Via email, I wrote to about half dozen or so respondents and explained my situation and how do they got their Macs fixed up. I received responses from 5 people, and guess what, every one of them were baited and switched. They all paid him $350 - $450 to get their Macs working again. Now, on the surface I think that they got their Macs repaired for cheaper cost than Apple would have charged them, BUT, I think this fellow Greg need to be upfront in coming out and say that he'll replace the logic board for a price, instead of advertising that he can fix it for $200.00

So, I still do not have a working MacBook, yet!

November Thirty - Hooray !!!!!

2008-11-30T15:16:00.002-07:00

Genesis - and the Finish Line

In the summer of 1985, my work in Boston (actually Sudbury), MA was coming to an end. With the cut back of the SDI program budget, many of my co-workers were getting laid off. The development of this program, as I mentioned previously was eventually terminated altogether Later that summer I went on a job interview in Texas, all expenses paid. When I arrived in Dallas and proceeded to have my interview, I was directly interviewed by a department director who was just promoted to the company VP. His name was Larry J. I was ctually scheduled to see several department managers, but after that one inerview, I was told that he wants me there, and to just name a time that I wan to move. Needless to say, instead of having an all day interview, I was back at the Dallas airport just after lunch. My return flight to Boston was supposed to be at 5 PM, but somehow I lost track of time, and by the time I realized it, my flight has departed for over an hour. And I was sitting at the gate! The ticket counter person was amused, but they finally managed to get me on to another flight that departed around midnight. To this day, I have no idea how I missed my flight home.

It took me several weeks to decide, and I finally told my future company that I cannot be there until the beginning of the next year. I told them that I was needed by my present company to train my replacement. They agreed, and also after some negotiation, they agreed to ship our two cars, belongings, and paid for our family to fly to Dallas instead of moving ourselves. That was the last move for our family. We moved in January 1986, and have been in Texas since then.

The rest is history, and most of yall know most of it.

November Twenty Nine

2008-11-29T19:51:00.005-07:00

Genesis ... Part Four

When we moved to Fort Wayne in 1977 for my stint at the second company, we wanted a house with a basement, but, alas, it seemed that all the newer houses they built there were built on slab. So we started talking to the Realtor about wanting to built one with a basement. We were discouraged from doing so, saying that the clay ground in the area is just not the right kind of dirt for basements. Well, we actually managed to get a two story colonial style house built with a basement. The builder put in a french drain outside the foundation, and inside the basement there is a well with sump pump running on the electric power. This was a nice change from our old house in Michigan. The basement pump worked well as long as we had power. One day, we lost power for an extended amount of time, and the water table started to rise in the basement, and without any power for the pump we had flooded basement for a while until the power came back.

Several times a week, one of my co-worker named Harry T. would come over after work and we'd have a ping-pong game in the basement. He was actually the one that later got me interested in playing tennis. I think that was the time that Prince came up with oversize aluminum racquet with the green plastic trim. And Vic Braden had a weekly tennis program on TV called "Tennis for the Future". Fort Wayne was a good place to raise a family, and we were blessed to have been there and be involved with the church family that we belonged to. We played softball ( I broke my collar bone after colliding with the second basement in an attempt to retrieve a pop up), help with sandbagging during one of the flooding that occurred periodically in downtown Fort Wayne, and enjoyed the many fine produced planted by the Amish communities around the area.

In 1982, I was offered took a job in the Boston area. I went there first, leaving the family behind, and lived in an apartment for a while. As in Fort Wayne, we looked for a used house, but ended up with a brand new house, in Milford, Massachusetts.

During my years in MA, I was involved with another goverment program called Milstar, a system similar to the one called GPS now, and also with one called SDI (strategic defense initiative). I don't remember what became of Milstar, but the SDI program eventually died. The only remnant of it is the missile shooting capability recently demonstrated when the US fired a missile to blow up a failing satellite that was about to re-enter the earth carrying dangerous hydrazine fuel. As a family, every time we had visitors from out of town, we'd go to downtown Boston to see Faneuill Hall, the Boston Aquarium, and sometimes tour the old wooden ship that is moored in the Boston Harbor. When we first moved to the neighborhood in Milford, we were quite isolated, and to us it seemed that the people there are quite reclusive, so we held a neighborhood party to get to know our neighbors. One of them, the Revzin family became our best friends. Kathy ran with P almost daily, including the Boston Marathon once, and D and I did a few things together, such as driving to New Hampshire to buy our first ever IBM PC with green monochrome monitor. Soon after, Apple Computer introduced the Macintosh, and I was enthralled by it and ended up with one that has a meager 128MB memory with no hard drive, but it could do word processing, drawing, and spreadsheet using user friendly interface instead of the Lotus 123 command line entries. A friend of mine and myself at work started a company Macintosh User Group called RMUG. Ed King, if you ever come accross this blog, do you remember me?

To be continued.

November Twenty Eight

2008-11-28T08:56:00.009-07:00

Genesis ... Part Three

While I was still at Calvin College, I have not yet became a US citizen, and my Indonesian passport needed renewal for me to maintain my legal status. I communicated with the Indonesian consulate in the US, and received a passport renewal request form, as well as a name change form with an explanation. If you have been around a long time, you might remember that in 1965 (just before I left Indonesia) there was a big revolt going on there. The founder and lifetime, one and only president at the time, President Sukarno was overthrown by the military, led by General Suharto. Sukarno, with the support of communist Chinese government was attempting to wrestle absolute power from the military, and it back fired on him. He was then put in house arrest until he died several years later.

The fact that the China supported this attempted coup d'etat, and that in general, most Indonesian of Chinese ethnicity are economically better off than the natives caused a lot of jealousy. Many big riots, house burning, killing, and discrimination occurred between 1965 and the years since. At that time, Indonesian of Chinese ethnicity still used their Chinese names, including me. If you are my family, you know what my initial T.H.L. stand for. Anyway, the name change was "suggested" to minimize the race discrimination problem that I might encounter. Someone told me what my Chinese name meant, so in the process of renewing my Indonesian passport, I went ahead and changed my legal name to a commonly used Indonesian name. The Indonesian word "rahman" means "grace" in English. Nowadays, many Indonesian Chinese have picked common Indonesian name, thus on paper, even I cannot distinguish whether they are native Indonesian or Indonesian of Chinese ancestry. I'll leave it to you to guess how my first name Julius came about? Because this name change was encouraged by the Indonesian authority, some of my siblinsg and relatives also changed theirs. Unfortunately, we all picked different last names, thus my brother Budi ended up with Kabcdefghij.

Since my college graduation, I have worked for 5 different companies, everyone of them involved mostly with government related contracts. Towards my last year at the first company, I started doing computer design, and embarked on a design for my home personal computer. At that time, you cannot buy a PC or Mac as you can do now. The only computer systems that exists are home brewed by electronic hobbyist, and most of them used the just created computer microprocessor chip called the 4004, followed by 4040 (4-bit computer chips) then the 8008, 8080, and Z80 (8-bit chips). My design was based on the Z80, and I built by own chassis (aluminum box), with power supply, and toggle switches for inputting data and memory address. It has a grand total of 8 kilobytes of memory, and no hard drive. Every memory instructions have to be entered one memory address, and one memory value at a time. Do a wikipedia on "microprocessor" to get more detailed information. Isn't it amazing how much computer technology has progressed since then? For me, as an engineer I have been able to see and appreciate the leap frog improvements and enabling technologies that were involved in their development to date. It is an experience that most people have benefitted but not realized how amazing it is to see what we've been able to accomplish now with these tiny silicon pieces.

Steph and Jen were born in Michigan, and later we moved to Indiana for my second company. Mel and Brian were born there. We moved there in late summer, and I remember Kathy who was then pregnant with Mel walking around the Three Rivers Festival hoping that Mel would come early, as she was very uncomfortable. But Mel was carried to full term like the others. I also remember the first heavy snow we had there. At that time we were still living in an apartment while our house was being built. It snowed and snowed, and by the time it stopped, the snow accumulation was about half way up the windows.

While in Indiana, I was involved in the computer system development that process data from the first ever CAT scan system (computerized axial tomography) being manufactured by Phillips Medical System. At that time, Philips and G.E. were racing to be the first manufacturers of this new medical imaging system. At that time the data from a CAT scan was recorded on a spool of magnetic tape the size of a big serving platter. We then process the data on a DEC PDP-11/34 machine, and it would take several hours to produce the slice images.

To be continued.

November Twenty Seven

2008-11-27T20:17:00.002-07:00

Headaches ...

Tonight's blog will be short, and it is a sidetrack from the previous blogs. We went to the Denver International Airport early, anticipating large crowds. Sure enough, the economy parking lots are already closed and full. We ended up at a more expensive lot called Wally Park, but we have no choice.

Previously, when Jan made the ticket reservation for our flights, she booked her flight and my flight on two internet transactions because she will be staying longer in Dallas for various appointments. After doing her's she tried mine, and after some internet work found a flight that is different from hers on the outbound flight. All that time she was wondering how come my flight departs later, but gets to Dallas earlier. I thought that maybe she just booked a flight that has a stopover, and though nothing of it.

At the AA counter we asked the lady there if I can change my flight to be on the same one Jan is in. She said, there is no such flight number out of Denver. So Jan pulled out her printed reservation, and she laughed. She said, my reservation is for Dallas to Denver, and back to Dallas! That explains why my flight times differences with hers!

Luckily, she was able to correct the wrong ticket by canceling that one, gave us credit for it and issuing a new one, at an additional cost of $60.00 We grab that, and we made it home to Dallas safely. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. May our Lord Bless you always.

November Twenty Six

2008-11-26T15:59:00.008-07:00

Genesis ... part two

While going to Calvin, I managed to buy my first ever car, a used 1962 Plymouth Valiant. At the time, Plymouth with their 6-cylinder slant six engine was a pretty good company, and had no viable competition from the Japanese car manufacturers. I really like cars, and I had a successions of several used ones throughout my lifetime. Never bought brand new cars until later after I married. In my last year at Calvin, I moved in to a house lived in by a retired school teacher named RL. She was an orphan in China, and was adopted by an American missionary that went to China in the early 1900s. She was very good to me and took me in as if I was her son. She herself adopted two orphan girls from China and raised them herself, but, by the time I moved in to RL's house, the girls were already gone and have family of their own. I lost touch and contact with them and now I don't even remember their names. RL passed away sometimes during that time, but my memory is fuzzy on the exact time. In the summer of 1969 (I think) my Mom and the rest of my siblings immigrated to the US and we rented a house in Grand Rapids from a church member named Mr. K. He was an older guy, and he was a widower that just married one of the neighbor, and his house became available. We spent that summer together, I took them to picnics at a favorite lake about 30 miles away called Gun Lake. We would pack up our food and portable grill, and while there we would cook typical American food; hot dogs and hamburgers. It was an idyllic summer. That fall I packed up my meager belongings and moved to Ann Arbor, to begin the final leg of my college education.

That summer was also the summer that I met Kathy. She was just 16, and lived a few houses down from where we lived. She and her sisters would come to our house and hang out with us, Chinese/Indonesian boys. I am not sure what got them interested in us, since we spoke funny English, and to them probably funny customs. Her mom and dad are very traditional Dutch American family from Iowa, and thus pretty much a meat and potato kind of family.

I've never dated anyone, and that summer Kathy, her sister and I went to see Paul Revere and the Raiders and the Carpenters. I don't remember which one was the main billing. After that Kathy and I started to become more than just friends. During my years at UofM, I went home almost every weekend to spend time with her. That's about 300 miles round trip for two years. On one of those weekends, I was on my way back to Ann Arbor on a Sunday night in the middle of winter, and I hit a patch of ice on the highway, spun 360 degree, and kept on going. I can only remember one weekend that I spent in Ann Arbor. On that particular weekend, I went home, brought her back to Ann Arbor, went to the UofM game against Ohio State, and brought her back to Grand Rapids, and then went back to school. It was a crazy time. All the the times I sold my football ticket allowance for extra spending money.

I graduated in the Spring of 1972, interviewed with one company and was offered a job at Lear Siegler Inc., in Grand Rapids, Michigan for the huge salary of $10,800.00 I was hired as a hardware design engineer where I designed electronic circuits for the F4 Phantom aircraft. It sounded glorious, but the piece that I worked on is the weapon delivery control panel, principally a little box that has push buttons, and these buttons then send signals to the weapon computer to release whatever ammunition is commanded. For those that don't know, when a physical switch is switch is pressed, little do you realize that the contact points bounced around for a few fractions of a milliseconds, thus sending the computer a signal that says close-open-close-open etc. until it stabilized. This is normally a bad thing because the computer would get confused and could malfunction. My job/design was to make sure that the first instance of closed contact stay closed electronically. That same year, I proposed and marry Kathy. We bought used furnitures, and bought an old house for a mere $7,500.00 Some of that furniture are still at the house in Rockwall.

To be continued.

November Twenty Five

2008-11-25T17:01:00.008-07:00

Genesis of the Rahmandar Clan

I was born in Indonesia in 1946, and came from a large family of 11 children. I don't remember very much of my early childhood years, except for a few things that I will mention here to prevent scammers and identity theft from getting too much info about me. They are so prevalent nowadays.

When I was just a young boy, I remember that we were a poor family relative to some of our friends, and much better off when compared to the Indonesian villagers. By poor I meant that we have a mortar and brick house, but we do not have telephone or refrigerator, even till the time that I left the country for the US in 1966. My mom was the primary bread winner, and she earned her living by making embroidered shirts called "kebaya". She was married twice (one of them was my dad), but they both died fairly young. I remember my mom would hurry and finished an order, then she would sent me or my brother to the customer and collect the money so we could have the money for food or other needs. We used to hate doing that chore. It was so embarrassing. Our daily food ingredients were bought fresh from the open market, and leftovers just sat on top of the stove until they are fully consumed or went bad. Having chicken for a meal involved buying a live chicken, slitting its neck, draining the blood, and then letting the bird flutter for a few minutes till it died. Then its time to pluck the feathers. We did that by dunking it into a boiling water for a few minutes, then the feathers just slides off the skin.

Ever since I can remember, I have always made my own toys and kites. I made wooden tops with cut off nail as its spike, soccer ball made up of a balled up small stone wrapped in layers of newspaper and plenty of rubber bands. Remember those lamps with lampshade that rotates around an inner one with pictures of fishes swimming around the lamp as if they are in an aquarium? I made one of those too. I made my own kites using bamboo frame and thin crepe paper. One of the fun or naughty(?) thing I used to do was to capture big male crickets, feed them hot peppers, and then I would get together with my friends and let our crickets fight each other inside a shoe box. On occasions I would go to a nearby Zoo, and I'd try to find a hole in ground and lasso a scorpion using home made lasso made out of grass.

During my teen years, I had a small motorcycle, Zundapp with 50 cc engine. I worked on this bike almost all the time, and once I took everything apart and managed to put it back together, just for grins. I have always been the go to man when my mom's sewing machine broke. Her sewing machine is the treadle kind with a belt as the drive mechanism, and this belt is made of leather that breaks every so often. I also remember having a small shortwave radio, and I listened to Radio Australia English language broadcast almost everyday. I would probably still recognize the sound that they used to play at the beginning of their broadcast hour, the sound of a kookabura bird chirping.

I left Indonesia when I was twenty. Imagine how scary that time was for me. I have never left the place of my birth until that time. The furthest I had ever been at that time was perhaps 150 miles. I know very little of spoken English, but can read and understand some. Of course as you read this, you probably noticed that I have bad grammar. Indonesian language does not use any grammar whatsoever, thus I have a hard time using the proper tense, gender, the usage of singular/plural expressions in English. My mom scraped enough money for me to survive in the US for a year, but the rest was up to me. At that time, I have no idea what America is like except for Hollywood images. I remember arriving in San Fransisco airport, and had a phone number of my mom's friend who imigrated to the Netherlands, and later to the US. Since I have never used a tepehone in my life, I had to ask a stranger to call this family. I was so scared then.
Luckily someone there answered and they later picked me up at the Grand Rapids, MI airport.

The G family, although from Indonesia originally are pretty much an all American family. Their children all grew up in American school so they looked at me as "fresh of the boat" type person. I spent that summer with them, and they enrolled me at Calvin College in the fall of 1966. I lived in the dorm for the next couple of years, and sometimes when everyone had gone home for the holidays, I remember spending that time alone in the dorm as I had no place to go. I was lucky that they let me stay in the dorm for the holidays. Once my money ran out, I was able to obtain a work permit from the INS, and I worked everyday while working my way through school at a place called Keeler Brass. I had scheduled my classes so that they mostly in the mornings, and I'd go to work during the second shift. Needless to say, I didn't study much, and my grades suffered, but I managed to keep a passing grade. I spent three years at Calvin, and finished my pre-engineering degree there, and was accepted to continue my education at the University of Michigan School of Engineering. To be continued.

November Twenty Four

2008-11-24T21:53:00.004-07:00

What to write today?

Wow, I sat in front of this laptop for the past few minutes thinking of what to write for today, and I drew a blank. I wanted to write something that would have a focal point, but it is not there. So, here's another rambling.

My MacBook is finally on its way to New York. It should be at the recipient's hand by this Wednesday. Let's hope he can fix it.

Lots of people from my work are gone for the week. Regular gasoline are now selling in the Denver area for as low as $1.679/gallon. If you have an iPhone (or try their website), by far one of the best free application is the Bible, and Pandora. This is on top of the default apps already included with the phone such as maps, weather, stoc, iPod, and YouTube.

The Bible is a neat application that allows you to select many translation to view, from KJV to The Message, and if you wish, there are even various language translation available for viewing. You can choose Bahasa Indonesia, Chinese, Korean, German, Dutch, Spanish, and many others. Some of the versions are available for download, so if you happened to be in an area with no cell phone coverage, you can still view the downloaded version. Oh, it also has a daily reading option, so you can read two chapters from the Old Testament, and one chapter from the New Testament. I use this option daily.

Pandora is a unique radio station like application. You enter a song name, or artist, and it will then play songs by that artist, as well as similar genre. If you enter Garth Brook, then it will play consecutively songs by him and the country music genre by other artist, e.g., Clint Black. Choose Irish Tenors, and you'll get a lot of old traditional gospels. Selecting Thumbs up or Thumbs Down refine your music selection for that genre. Its really kewl.

One other program worth mentioning is Shazam. This program listens to whatever song is being played on your radio, TV or whatever music is playing, and after a few seconds it will tell you the name of the song! Very kewl!

November Twenty Three

2008-11-23T19:35:00.004-07:00

Seven More days of NaBloPoMo

The first half was easy, but I too am running out of idea on what to write as the month progresses forward. So todays blog will just be random ramblings. Today I packed up my MacBook, and it will soon be on its way to the eBayer who claimed he can fix it. I also packed up my brother's Dell laptop after adding a Microsoft Office look-alike called OpenOffice ( openoffice.org ). This is a very good program, and in its setting you can configure the software so that it automatically open and save files as MS Office documents, so compatibility should be pretty good, and its free!

Today, I tried using AIM video to chat with Jen who just got herself a new Christmas present, a brand spanking new MacBook. Alas, AIM is NOT compatible with Mac's for video chat. She then downloaded the Mac version thinking it would work, but no dice. So I suggested for her to download Skype, and it worked the first time we tried it. Thanks Skype! So now we can do video chat using Skype, until I get my MacBook working again. By the time this took place, Owen is already in bed, so I didn't get to see him. Jen told said that Owen love doing video chat, so I hope he gets to do this with his cousins in Alaska soon. It would be fun to see him on it, especially since he was in Alaska not very long ago. I wonder what his reaction would be when he sees Jacob, Tobias, and Jamiee.

Yesterday we went to iMax Theater to see the show about "Alaska". The theater is inside the Denver Museum of Natural Science. It was quite dizzying when the camera mounted on an airplane(?) zooms down the mountainous valley. It felt like I am falling of the cliff. We also saw other parts of the museum that are currently exhibiting the dinosaurs. As I was looking at all these, I kept on thinking and wondering if the older grandkids like Jacob and Owen would love to see this exhibits.

On another room, there in an interesting exhibit by a Russian artist that create human like sculpture or figurines using gemstones as the base material. Take a look at the sample picture and the description of materials that this artist use for his sculpture.

NovemberTwenty Two

2008-11-22T18:35:00.003-07:00

Virus, Adware, Desktop Hijacker

My brother in Michigan sent me his laptop because he could no longer access the internet, and his desktop has a splash screen overlaying the background saying: DANGER, you're infected by a virus! You must take action immediately!"

Needless to say he didn't know what to do with it, so he asked me to fix that for him. I started using the standard tools to disable most of the start-ups, but that didn't do the job. I tried everything to make an internet connection so I can download anti-spyware and virus tools, but it doesn't allow me to connect to the internet. Loading SpyBot S&D and AdAwareSE downloaded to another computer then install via a CD doesn't allow me to clean it up because, guess what, these tools need to download their latest detection rule files and without a connection to the internet, that's not going to happen.

So I backed up all his personal files, pictures, and documents that he had on to a DVD. Luckily for this laptop, Dell had partition the hard drive into two section, the second one being a PC Restore partition. That allows me to restore the computer to the state that it came in with when we first bought it. I then went into a Safe Mode boot, format the primary disk partition, and restore the laptop to its new factory configuration, and sure enough, all the virus and other malware are now gone.

I copied back all his files into the newly created disk, and I was then able to get on the internet. For future safeguard, I then downloaded AdAwareSE, SpyBot S&D and a few other utilities that I know he would use. These are: CDeX (a CD ripper that can rip into wav file or mp3), 1by1 MP3 Player, FastStone Image Viewer, VLC Video Player (one of the best video player that can play almost every type of video format), and CDBurner XP (a CD/DVD burner). These are all freeware.

Did you know that Microsoft Vista, in their stupidest wisdom, provided Windows Media Player with Vista, but when you insert a CD or DVD movie, it will not be able to play it. It would barf and say that I need to download some codec or something like it. How can a giant like Microsoft charge a few hundred bucks for the operating system and provide tools that cannot play a common, run of the mill commercial audio CD or video DVD right away? Aargh.

November Twenty One

2008-11-21T17:07:00.002-07:00

Hungover?

Yesterday we left work early for a Happy Hour and Farewell Dinner to one of my co-worker who is transferring to another program. The dinner place is called Piccolo's, and it is a unique restaurant in that the served Mexican and Italian food. On the table were chips and salsa (Mexican), but also rolls with butter serving portions (Italian).

By the time Jan and I got there, most of my other colleagues were already there, and perhaps on their second pint of Fat Tire Ale. I ordered Osso Bucco with a side of spaghetti, and Jan ordered Pine nut breaded salmon with a side of fetuccine alfredo. The meal was so so, but we have a decent time socializing. My co-workers are all in the twenties and I am not sure if any of them are thirty yet. Needless to say, after the meal was done and we finished our beers, we left.

Today, I went to work, and those that came to the party barely showed up. Two of them called saying they have migraine headache, two of them came in for a few hours then left. I found out that after we left, they went to one of my co-worker's house which is nearby, and have another drinking binge. One guy left his car at the restaurant parking lot, with the intent of getting it back the next day. Well, he never did that and did not show up at work.

November Twenty

2008-11-20T19:50:00.007-07:00

My MacBook is going to New York!

Without any technical data available, I have not been able to proceed beyond getting the battery to charge. Now whenever I push the power button to on, the unit turn's on briefly, I can hear the CD/DVD drive powers up for a short time, and then it immediately self shutdown. There is something wrong with the POST (power on self test, a process that most computer goes through before attempting to boot up) in that it detected an anomaly, and thus for self preservation it cuts down the power flow and shuts down. If POST was successful, the Mac then produced that familiar "boing sound" and proceed to the next step of finding a boot source such as the CD/DVD or hard drive. I wish I know which part of the self test sequence this POST is doing, so I can correct that condition, but no dice. Scouring the internet produced no result. Interestingly, while doing so I found an Apple document that I am familiar with. Many years ago, when Apple was a young company they used to produce technical documents for their hardware and software. One of them is called Service Source. This is a document that describe how to trouble shoot a Mac computer, and how to take it apart. This in itself is not a big deal nowadays as one website called ifixit.com often times have many take apart procedures available for most Apple products as web pages or downloadable PDF file, along with color photographs. Service Source however, is not readily available, and usually only certified Apple technicians have access to it. I found a copy for the MacBook Pro, but alas, none for my MacBook. In any case though, when I followed the Service Source trouble shooting procedure, it points to replacing the Logic Board. This is a 700-800 dollar item from Apple, and I am not willing to spend that much money. On eBay or ifixit, they are going for about 400-500, still way too much for me. So I am going to a last resort for now: I found a fella on eBay who claimed a 90% success rate in curing MacBooks with the above symptom. He claimed that if he can't fix it, there will be no charge except for the cost of shipping it back to me. Otherwise, he'll charge 200 dollars.

I am going to give him a try. His eBay feedback is 97% positive, so I am fairly confident that he is going to be ok. That's it for now.

November Nineteen

2008-11-19T20:16:00.003-07:00

To be alone with no family to turn to . . .

Tonight was our last Divorce Care for the year, and we have one attendee who had been with us only for the last 2 weeks. She is a Japanese woman who was married to an American in Okinawa and then moved to the States. They were married for almost twenty years and divorced almost as many years ago. Because of her marriage to a non-Japanese, her own family in Japan disowned her. Because of her divorce from her Mormon husband, her ex-husband and her two children whom she raised disowned her. Her sons are now married and have children, but she has never seen her grandchildren. They don't want to have anything to do with her, and she said it has been almost six years ago since she saw her son. She doesn't even have their contact information, no phone number, no address.

How can anyone comprehend what is going through her mind? She buried herself in her work to survive and keep busy. Her language and social skills are not conducive to bring her into social circles that will help her thrive. She became a christian and have accepted Christ as her Savior.
Jan and I have befriended her, but we are concerned and don't know what to do. Today after the DC session she asked us what she can do on Thanksgiving day since she didn't want to spend time alone. She tried to volunteer at the the Denver Rescue Mission, but perhaps because of her language barrier or maybe they already have enough volunteer, she wasn't able to help them. They told her they have enough help for the day.

What should we do? We looked at ourselves, and realized how much the Lord has blessed us with EVERYTHING. Our spouses, our immediate family, our extended family, our jobs, and our friends and everything else that surround our lives. Please pray today specifically for her and other people you know that are not as fortunate and blessed as we are.

November Eighteen

2008-11-18T17:30:00.003-07:00

Jesus or Barabbas?

This question came into my mind last week, and although it bears little resemblance to the recent election result, the thought that came to my mind is "crowd/majority mentality". We as humans continue to use reason and logic based on personal thinking and many historical events that took place because of it.

In Jesus' day, the crowd got into a frenzy of wanting Jesus crucified, and they chose Barabbas. For what reason? Recent events (relatively), showed acts of violence against individuals in the presence and participation by a crowd. I think that each one of us looked at these and wondered how can one human being do heinous things to another human being. And yet, truthfully, we probably have done something like that, perhaps not in a grander or worse action. I would venture that we'd never do such thing, if we are alone, under the same circumstances. Peer pressure? Somehow our moral compass get sidelined under certain conditions.

Food for thoughts:
- the dragging of a black man by a group of boys a while back, I think it was in Lousiana
- the beating of a man by a group of policemen in California
- the beating of a downed helo pilot in by a crowd in Africa (BlackHawk Down)
- and many more like it

November Seventeen

2008-11-17T19:32:00.001-07:00

No blog today. I am not feeling well.

November Sixteen

2008-11-16T16:36:00.003-07:00

Mission for Christ

Today as a special Sunday for our church. We have the Rocky Mountain High Baptist Group cook a meal for us, as they did for the recent disaster relief team during the Houston hurricane. This group along with other group went down to provide meals, and several chainsaw gangs to remove fallen trees from houses. Unfortunately, by the time the we get to the food line, they were about to run out. I guess they underestimated the number people palnning to taste their food. During the service, they said that it was Jambalaya. Well, we we got to it, it didn't look like one. So this afternoon I scrounge around our fridge, and found we have everything we need to make our own, except for the shrimp. So, it is just finishing cooking, and soon we'll get to enjoy the real Jambalaya (my kind anyway!).

The sermon message was: seize the day. There are many opportunities everywhere to do the Lord's work, and the bottom line is don't wait for the "right" opportunity, but do it now with what you have been given. He used David in 1 Samuel 17 as an example. At that time, the Philistine was devastating God's people. Saul and his warriors could not defeat Goliath. Then David step forward saying he was going to battle the Philistine. They laughed at him and told him to go home. David was just a small scrawny boy, and even Saul doubts that David is the right person for the battle. Everyone was waiting for a big strong person with war skills.
You know the ending.

November Fifteen

2008-11-15T21:29:00.003-07:00

First Snow Fall

We have been in Denver more than ten months now, and the locals told us that we usually have had snow by this time of the year. Well, when I went to work yesterday morning, there were a thin layer of snow on the ground and rooftops, and my car in the car port was also covered with some snow. The road had black ice, but by noon everything had already melted. Up in the mountain it is a different story. The ski resorts have had plenty of snow, natural and man-made. I think the snow system that came down yesterday also dropped about 4 inches of new snow at the resorts. Skiing has begun at most resorts in the area.

Another ironic sideline is the news that these ski resorts now carry more variety of ski equipments for rent. They are speculating on the fact that airlines now charge ridiculous baggage fees, and the ski equipment rental places are banking that skiers will now be more apt to rent rather bring their own equipment, especially if they provide more name brand varieties. We'll see if their strategy pays off. By the way, on the way to our Sunday School class monthly dinner, we saw regular gas price at $1.89 a gallon! Who would ever thought gas price would go below $2.00 again.

November Fourteen

2008-11-14T17:26:00.002-07:00

Constantly changing plans ...

As most of you know or have read in my previous blog, Jan and I were planning to be home for the entire month of December. Well, I just received an email from my Texas company management requesting that I extend my work here under the current contract till mid January. We have medical appointments, made plans to babysit Paddy, and a few other things, but that all is about to fall by the wayside.

So, in the last couple of hours we've been busy trying to decide what to do next. I think we will fly home for Thanksgiving, leaving on TG day, and go on with the plan to have TG dinner on Sunday. Then on Monday December 1, I'll see if I can schedule one of the doctor's appointment initially scheduled for December 3.

I think I am supposed to be sedated for the Monday procedure, so, we'll probably plan to fly back to Denver on Tuesday, December 2.

On Friday December 19, we'll begin our trek home (driving) for the Christmas holidays, and be in Dallas until January 2, driving back to Denver that weekend.

Wow, what a day. This "change" will impact many of your plans and I am so sorry for doing all this to yall, especially for you, Mel and Teddy.

November Thirteen

2008-11-13T20:05:00.007-07:00

Infomercial

I have no vested interest in this company, but I check this website everyday because of the interesting items they sell. They have everything from obscure computer parts to jewelry and weird stuff. This website sells everything with free shipping, and their prices are almost half the prices of same or similar items you can find elsewhere in the web. For example, the earphone shown cost me just $3.83 with free shipping. I bought this unit a while back, and it is a very good unit. On top of that, twice it went through a complete cycle of wash and dry in the washing machine inside my jeans pocket, and it is still working fine. When my iPhone HOME button quit working, I think I nicked the flexible printed circuit cable that was near the battery pack. Guess what, this website has a replacement piece for for just under $10. I bought it, but then I sold my iPhone for twice the price I got it on eBay. Se la vie. The iPhone 3G car charger shown above is only $3.69 Note that charger for previous generations of iPhones will most likely not work with your 3G phone because Apple decided to abandon Firewire pins charging (12V) and went with USB pins charging (5V) in their docking connector.

If only they also carry a MacBook logic board. I would have ordered it from them and get my MacBook working again. I think that's a bit to far infringement into Apple's proprietary stuff, huh?

Now you're wondering which website, right? Ok here's the link: http://www.dealextreme.com The only catch is that they are located somewhere in Hongkong or China, so it takes about 2-3 weeks to get your order delivered. I use PayPal to pay for my orders so they don't have access to my credit card. I've ordered several different things over a period of time, and they have always fulfilled my order satisfactorily. Now go shopping.

November Twelve

2008-11-12T20:20:00.003-07:00

Divorce Care

We bought a new DVD from the Divorce Care organization called Surviving the Holidays. I remember how hard and difficult it was for me and everyone of my family members that were affected by my divorce to deal with the holidays. We had our meeting at the church today to present this program. I think it went well, especially since Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Many of the participants are just now realizing how their divorce or separation have changed their life immensely. To them Thanksgiving had been the one holiday where family gathering and relationships are usually celebrated and cherished, but now, they are facing a new and uncertain future.

Since completing the 13-week DC program last month, we have had requests to continue the weekly program with selective topic, and we have been led by the Lord to do so, and have been doing mini-DC sessions for the past few weeks. We will be doing this until its time for us to go home to Texas for the month of December. We are also making plans to start DC again next year, and today we have request from two more people whether we can also do a Sunday afternoon program. We are praying about this and if that is the Lord's calling, we'll be doing two DC sessions a week next year. Pray for us. Oh, one of our participants is "freshly wounded", and she also has a teenage son with disability. She is in a deep emotional stress and need our prayers.

PS: My Mac is able to charge the battery, but still will not boot. I am baffled, but will continue to try to get it running. Know if anyone wanting to get rid of a dead MacBook? :-) Maybe I can mix and match parts from it to get one working ....

November Eleven

2008-11-11T21:35:00.004-07:00

The battery is now charging!!!!

Ok, here's the latest on my MacBook. I started taking apart the MacBook, all the way to the logic board. It seemed that there was sticky fluid near where the battery connector cable was plugged into the logic board. I carefully clean the dozen or so fine pins of the connector (the other end of the short pigtail battery cable that plugs into the logic board). I also cleaned the mating part, and put that back in after making sure that they are dry. I temporarily plug in the battery pack, and hook up the MagSafe power adapter to the logic board. Guess what, the LED on the MagSafe plug turn from green to orange, indicating it is now charging the battery.

Now I have to put everything back together again, and hopefully the logic board is not damaged and will boot up. Stay tuned!

November Ten

2008-11-10T18:43:00.002-07:00

MacBook Repair

This weekend has been pretty much "wasted" with me searching and googling the internet on trying to find technical information on the MacBook. It seemed that there are quite a few people having problem with their MacBook refusing to power up, some due to water spills, and some that just never woke from the sleep.

I am looking for the battery pinout, and also whether the motherboard has a fuse. There is guy on eBay that claimed 90% success in restoring MacBook with the same symptom as mine for $185.00 That maybe the route I might take, but I haven't had the mindset to do that yet. Somewhere in the deep dungeon of the internet, someone may have posted a solution.

If you know the info, please let me know. I've tried all the Apple tricks including resetting the SMC, NVRAM, etc, but no dice. But I haven't given up on this yet.

November Nine

2008-11-09T07:07:00.004-07:00

Adam and Jesus

I was hesitant a little bit about posting this subject as I am not a christian scholar, but Barry's blog ( http://texasquiver.blogspot.com/ ) got me going. This topic was actually intended for November One, and I had begun typing the entry in Notepad and it languished there till now. If you don't believe the Bible as the inspired word of God then this blog will probably not make much sense to you.

A few weeks ago during Sunday School we were studying the book of Romans Chapter 5. Incidentally, verse 8 is the closing verse of the movie Fireproof. That verse and class discussions got me to thinking of the similarities and differences between Adam and Jesus.

Adam was God's perfect creation, without sin. He was the first human created directly, by God through divine intervention, with free mind and will, not created to be an obedient robot but with independent thinking and action. He was to be God's companion. He was given free will, mind, and dominion over everything else that God created in this world for him. He had only one rule to obey, and that was the Apple tree rule. Adam disobeyed, lost that direct contact with God, sinned and died.

Jesus of Nazareth is God's perfect creation, without sin. He is the second human created directly by God through divine intervention. He is God's son with free mind and will, not created to be an obedient robot that do everything God wants. He is given free will, mind, and power over everything else that God created in this world for him. He had only one rule to obey, and that was to redeem our sins. Jesus faced many of the temptations, physical and and emotional turmoils that humans get as a result of Adam's sin but Jesus obeyed God the father. He did not use that power to save himself. He never sinned, idid not disobeyed God's wish and fulfilled God's wish by redeeming us from our sin, died and was risen to be with God again. He is our Lord Jesus Christ.

Side track: if you haven't seen the movie Fireproof, please make an effort to see it.

November Eight

2008-11-08T17:03:00.003-07:00

Not much happening today. I began to take apart the MacBook, and inside the unit all looked pristine. No sign of water or dried up fluid at the logic board, keyboard, or optical drive. The bottom part of the hard drive have a little spot of dried up liquid, but not enough to cause problem, as far as I can tell. But in one spot of the inside near the battery contacts, there is this little circle dot that is red. This is how the Apple person can tell if the inside ever got exposed to water. This dot is normally white. I took apart the MagSafe DC-in board hoping to be able to find a telltale fuse, but this thing is so tiny. I cannot find anything that looked like a fuse. Will keep on trying.

Jan is now home after a few days visit in Charleston.

November Seven

2008-11-07T18:14:00.003-07:00

Got a fairly new MacBook (broken)

Yesterday I was surfing craigslist and found someone selling a broken MacBook. It says water damage, won't power on, good for parts.

Well, I've been keeping an eye for something like that, because I wanted to have a laptop that can dual boot, switching between MacOS and WinXP. I contacted the seller, and after some negotiation got it for a really really really low price. Check eBay and broken a unit like this cost several hundred dollars. So now I have a project to do: to get this Mac working again. I am hoping that it will be just a simple problem, but to get to the problem, I'll have to take the unit apart and find out and fix what is wrong. I know that at this point power is not getting to battery and it just beep beep beep when I tried to turn it on.

This is a fairly new Mac, the invoice in the box says it was shipped from Apple just a couple months ago. It has the complete CD set, the power adaptor, and even the original Apple box! I guess the previous owner didn't want to spend the money to get it fixed.

The Mac itself is a Core 2 Duo 2.1 GHz CPU, with combo drive, 120 GB hard drive, and built-in iSight. I am looking forward to get this thing working again.

Oh one other thing: remember my iPhone that I paid $100 for it? I broke it an attempt to fix the volume control buttons. I got that fixed, but the Home button broke after that repair. I was so bummed and missed my iPhone, so I got the new 3G version a couple of days later. After contemplating whether to fix the broken one myself (you know I can do it!) or sell it, I decided to put up the broken unit for sale on eBay. No one bid on it till the last 10 minutes. Then the bidding war began, and at the last few seconds, the iPhone was sold for $200!!!!! Hemh, that paid for my new iPhone 3G. I am so happy !!!

A man and his toys.

November Six

2008-11-06T06:24:00.002-07:00

Life goes on ...

Last night I moderated the Divorce Care session by myself as Jan is currently in Charleston, SC to spend some time with her mother. The topic was on anger, one of the many phases and consequences of divorce . Since being in Denver, Jan and I felt the need and God's desire for us to start a Divorce Care program at our church here in Denver. We were expecting maybe 3-4 people attending at the onset of the program this past summer. Many churches in Texas that offered this program usually take a hiatus in the summer months because of low attendance. But God knows best. We were blessed with an average of 12 people attending every week. It has been a much needed ministry, and we are so fortunate and blessed that the Mississippi Avenue Baptist Church staff have been supportive of this endeavor.

DC is bible based support group, and thus beside providing the much needed ministry of support group, it is also an opportunity to present the Lord's teaching to some that have never consider Him as the rock of their lives.

November Five

2008-11-05T06:54:00.005-07:00

The People have Spoken

I prayed this morning that our country will continue to be the greatest country in the world despite all the deficiencies that we as Americans perceived as lacking. As a foreign born citizen, I am very proud of our country and for what it represents, a country that stood for justice and freedom. I am sad that we as a country have moved away from the original foundation of Christianity and her moral values. I wonder what our founding fathers thought about us now?

The moment of fear when our little Sarah was discovered with congenital heart defect, and the subsequent surgery when she was a mere 7 lbs was almost unbearable were it it not for the comfort that our Lord have given us. Everyone that trust the Lord and have faith, prayed for her successful surgery and recovery. The Lord was gracious in answering our prayers positively and immediately, Sarah is now well and growing again. WE did that because we know her, have seen her, some have touched her, and all have loved her. The future may not be so fortunate for many of the unborn, un-touched, and un-loved, and un-seen child.

Side comments on Sarah Palin: Many people have a low opinion on her lack of experience. Put yourself in her position and consider the opportunities you were given by others who trust you before you took on ANY jobs or positions. I have been there when I first graduated from college. From the jobs I had. From being a parent the first time around. I had no experience in any of these life responsibilities. And yet, someone had given me that chance. She is a brave woman, and I hope that her future will be bright, and for her to show others of her capability as she continue to do great things for the people of Alaska.

November Four

2008-11-04T17:00:00.002-07:00

Chili Contest

I found out yesterday that we're having a chili contest at work. So when I got home, Jan asked Steph for the chili recipe that Steph used and won at least a couple of time in Fort Yukon.

Last night I went shopping for the ingredients and a crock pot, since we didn't bring ours from Texas. I changed the recipe a little bit, omitting certain spices and added chopped green peppers.

Today was the judging, during lunch time, and I won second place. Not bad for a first time chili maker.

November Three

2008-11-03T06:07:00.006-07:00

My thoughts today concern family. Exactly one year ago today my mom passed away after a short bout with lung cancer. She gave birth to 11 children, and left a legacy of love that her descendants continue to foster, despite the fact that some of us are from different fathers. To her, family is an important part of her life. I love you mom!

I pray that as you read this you will remember to touch someone in our family that you've neglected, lost contact, or just too busy to "get around to it". How many times I've rationalized in my mind that its not a good time to call, or I'll call later, or maybe its too late to call, or I'll call later when I have more time, or some other reason, when deep down, it is just our reluctance to do so.

Billy Graham in today's daily devotion said: "The family is the most important institution in the world. It was God's idea in the first place ... In the home character and integrity are formed, values are made clear, and goals are set. These last a lifetime. And if they aren't formed correctly, that, too, will result in patterns - bad patterns that last a lifetime, if God doesn't intervene."

Mom's legacy is family love. I grew up without really knowing my father, but I found God through Jesus Christ, and the Bible. I want that pattern changed and have tried to be there for my children, family, and love each one of them the same and as much as my mom loved hers.

November Two

2008-11-02T07:58:00.006-07:00

I was going to post about something else today, but an event that happened so briefly last week dwelled in my mind quite a bit. It was just a phone call, lasting perhaps just 15 seconds.

In early October I had my two year follow-up check with my radiation oncologist at UT Southwestern. I asked the physician assistant and research coordinator to mail me a copy of the blood test when they get it, but after waiting for a couple of weeks, I never received it. So I sent them an email.

I received a phone call last week, and briefly AP ( initials) said that my PSA came back higher than normal, at 6.83. Until that news, I was on a downward trend from 14.48 to 4.1 ... since my treatment in February 2007. She said I got the phenomenon called PSA bump, and not to worry. This phone call was followed by an email reply explaining why I never got the mailed blood test report. AP's explanation was "I thought TT was going to mail it, and TT thought I was going to mail it ..."Perhaps neither wanted to be the bearer of bad news? I have researched about this phenomenon, but the radiation experts have not been able to explain this happen to some people. Dr. Critz from the Radiation Center of Georgia did a study, and saw this phenomenon in about 30% of his patients. There are no in-depth data to tell whether this is an indication of failure (generally not).

November One

2008-11-01T11:13:00.006-06:00

This year's presidential election has really gotten to me more then it ever had. Perhaps my greater awareness of Christ's presence in my life, and trying to base my life decisions to conform to my faith. Although I have elected mostly Republican presidential candidates in the past, once I did try to look at the person and what he promised during the campaign and voted for Jimmy Carter based on his promises and have regretted that decision. His lack of decisive leadership and his passivity have brought down our country to the brink of disaster. On the same vein, I voted for GW twice, and on hindsight, his second term has been a failure of leadership. So now we come to two candidates that I'd rather not make the choice, but given the cards that were dealt, I had chosen and voted McCain, for the following reasons:

- His stance on life, abortion, and gay marriage
- His life as a soldier, prisoner of war, and years of service to the country as a senator is well known.
- His wealth is not a sudden occurrence, and what he has is principally because of his wife's being a beer company heiress
- His patriotism and love for our country seemed genuine to me
- I believe the things he said, especially when he is not in the main public eye, and mostly I think he says what he believed, as opposed to saying what the people want him to say.
- His past records in congress shows that he is not shy from making decisions yea or nay, as opposed to avoiding responsibility by voting PRESENT
- I have read an analysis by a mathematician comparing taxes on families earning less than $100K during the Clinton and Bush presidential years, based on tax tables comparison, and despite all the rhetoric’s, the data showed that the people are better off during Bush's presidential term.
- My fear of the governance of this country with no checks and balance as congress heads toward a 'veto proof' majority
- A drastic change in the direction of the Supreme Court decisions

I could also list the reasons of why I did not vote for the other candidate, but that would be disingenuous since some of you have voted for him. On November Four, we will know the choice of the people whether it is McCain or Obama, and although many will then say that the Lord have chosen the president of the United States, this is NOT CORRECT. The Lord gave us the freedom to make choices, and whomever we elected as our president elect, that is us who made that election. There had been many examples in the Old Testament of the Jewish people choosing the 'wrong' King of their own, and the Jewish people at that time reaped what they sown. We too will experience the consequences of our choice, good or bad.

The colors of Fall is fading

2008-10-27T06:48:00.007-06:00

A few weeks ago Jan and I went to the Rocky Mountain National Park by Estes Park to see the Fall colors and the Elk bugling (sp?). We saw more beautiful colors just outside our apartment complex than in the mountains. Perhaps the available variety of trees made the difference. In the mountains, there were scattered yellows of trees among the dense growth of pines, and unfortunately, also the brown dead pines killed by the pine beetles. We didn't see much orange, red, or maroon colors. Oh, on the elks, we saw a small herd (3) just as we entered the park, none along the mountain ridges, and then a a large herd in the distant, near the park exit. The bad news is that Jan's camera battery died and I didn't have my 10x SLR camera with me, so there were no good pictures. It was a weird thing though to hear the male elk bugles as he chased after the "female of the minute". He would amble along for a few more minute, and then repeated the routine.

Oh, start checking this blog space starting in November. You'll be bored stiff with NaBloPoMo.

Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge

2008-08-16T08:13:00.007-06:00

We took the opportunity of Jenn and Owen's visit to see the highest suspension bridge in the world called Royal Gorge Bridge (1200 feet, wooden roadway 1ooo feet above the Arkansas River) , about 30 miles west of Colorado Springs, Colorado. We saw the bridge, walked across it and back, and also saw it from the train down below. It is amazing that something like that, built in 1929 cost only $350,000 and was completed in just 7 months. When you think about it, we Americans have lost our productivity and industriousness quite a bit since then. Oh, take a look at the tiny river raft in the bottom of one of train pictures.

Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Mother's Day

2008-05-11T22:05:00.003-06:00

We went to the early church service this morning then headed to the Red Rocks Amphitheatre, about 15 miles west of Denver (42 miles from our apartment). Red Rocks is a natural formation of red rocks jutting out at different angles from the foothills of the Rockies. In 1941, the City of Denver carved an amphitheater into the side of one of the formations and today it is one of the most popular spots for outdoor concerts, weddings, graduations, as well as Sunrise service on Easter morning. You can see from theWe spent Mother's Day afternoon at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, CO about 15 miles photos that it is also a very popular place with the fitness freaks who run across each row from top to bottom! Look at the skyline on the third picture. You can see the outline of downtown Denver from that vantage point.

We had eaten so many donuts in Sunday School that we weren't hungry for lunch until we arrived at Red Rocks. We were delighted to discover that they had a very nice restaurant that was offering a lavish Sunday buffet complete with complimentary Mimosa's! Alas, we ate so much that we could not take advantage of any of the trails on the hillside behind the amphitheatre. So we returned to our humble abode and promptly took a nap!

Churruscaria in Dallas

2008-04-27T17:46:00.014-06:00

We were in Dallas last weekend and had the opportunity to celebrate Shea's and Jen's birthday at a churruscaria. Here's a sample of picture of the food we ate. Makes me hungry again just looking at that juicy meat.

Here's one picture of Patrick. He looked so grown up sitting there by himself.

Do you think Owen has a squinty left eye like Opa? Nope, he was just clowning around.

Aren't they cute? The two boys smiling and holding hands. Owen really enjoyed that, and he giggled a lot as he was reaching and holding Patrick's hand.

What a Difference a Day Makes

2008-04-10T21:31:00.004-06:00

Melissa left Denver on Tuesday morning and on Wednesday night, it snowed 4 inches! What a difference a day can make in the weather here! The locals say that we will get more snow in March & April than we did in January and February! The snow is much wetter now than in January and it feels more like what we would get on a rare snow day in Dallas. It should be all melted by tomorrow and the forecast for the weekend is in the 60's!

We really enjoyed showing Paddy and Mel around Denver and Colorado and miss them already. Everywhere we went, everybody oohed and cooed over Paddy because he is such a cute baby! He really enjoyed his Opa-time and spent a lot of time on his lap. I have to finish this quickly because Opa is falling asleep as I type! More later!

New hair cut

2008-04-05T10:12:00.004-06:00

Since moving to Denver, there are a couple of things that I noticed as being hard to find. First, unlike the Dallas area, I have not seen very many donut shops around. It seems that most people get their donuts from the grocery stores. To this day, I have not seen a single Dunkin' Donut shop in the various routes to and from work. Second, I wanted to get a hair cut, and just like the donuts, I have seen only two places with the red-blue-white spiral signs aka barber shops. One place I went to last month was closed, even though the sign on the window said they were open for business. Later, I found a Super Cuts, and thought that this would be ok, how hard could it be to cut what little hair I had?!! I asked her to give me a tapered hair cut. But when it was finished, she obviously didn't know what I meant! She hardly used the hair clipper, and used mostly the scissors which resulted in what looked like a blunt cut on the ends. Fast forward a month later. Today, I decided to go to the second barber shop that I have found. I walked in, and there were four barbers, all African American, and there were 4 African Americans being Afro'ed, and four more people waiting. I decided to give it a try. See the results for yourself.

Ski Train to Winter Park

2008-03-24T19:12:00.005-06:00

We took a ride on the Ski Train from Denver to Winter Park this past Saturday. This is an easy, no-driving, and no-hassle way to get to the slopes! And the train, which is 1/4 mile long, was full! Interesting tidbit we learned is that the Winter Park Resort is owned by the City of Denver, hence it has become the winter and summer playland for most Denverites. Attached are some photos of the 56 mile train trip there which took us through several tunnels including the longest on the Continental US, the Moffat Tunnel. Since we don't ski, we took the warm and cozy Snowcat on a 2 hr. tour up to the top of the mountain. The photo of the Snowcat was taken in front of the Sunspot Lodge, an R & R place at the top of the mountain. It was a very busy day since it is the beginning of Spring Break for Colorado schools. The Jr. Olympics was holding trials on one of the moderate slopes near the base and we included one of those photos. We had many more photos so when you come visit, we'll show you the rest of them. Alas, the train stops running April 13 and doesn't travel again until June, and Winter Park closes for skiing on April 13th as well. Enjoy the photos and let us hear from you!

my first blog

2008-03-24T18:05:00.001-06:00

Hi all,

Here's my first blog.