Ushering the Chinese New Year

As the lunar new year is approaching, I thought I ought to get my act together as well. Kenny Sia's new year resolution is to slim down for his Malaysian Dreamgirl. Although my comment is number 100++, I am the number one to suggest badminton as a good way to reduce weight. See if I can hit top 10 next time. I have no problem with my weight, thanks to good genes, good eating and exercise habits;) I haven't formally made any resolutions. Gotta find a time to do it.

However, as you can see, I have decorated my blog to look nicer. I am still on the learning curve but I am quite happy with myself. 'Sedikit-dikit lama-lama jadi bukit', as the Malay saying goes.

The boar(pig) was pretty well-behaved last year, I think. Not the early part of this year though. It felt more like the year of the bear....for equities market, that is. Sometimes you can even spot the alligator.

Last week was a frenzy as capitulation took place. Who would not panic when you look at charts like this? Okay, it is still year of the boar.

A check on the weather report shows that the temperature now is 53^oF (which is about 12^oC) here in San Diego.

In Chicago, it is 27^oF (or -2.7^oC).

Sometimes I just miss the warm climate in Malaysia. When it is cold like this, you really don't feel like going out, don't feel like taking a shower. You take a longer time to warm up for badminton and your shots are usually awful.

Consider myself very lucky if I look at the winter storm now raging in China. It is the worst in 50 years and is blamed for at least 63 deaths, including at least 25 when a bus plunged off a slippery mountain road. Something for us to think about the effects of global warming and the consequences of our actions and inactions.

It is very hard to imagine what these folks have to go through. I already cannot 'tahan' (stand) the bus waiting platform outside the Johor Bahru immigration custom. I remember seeing a pregnant lady trying to get on the bus with another small child. Since it was extremely crowded, she had to pass her child over the people heads to some other person already at the entrance door. It is amazing to see that things like this still exist.

This year will be the year of the rat. It is said to symbolize wealth and prosperity. It is the first of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. Rat is associated with aggression, wealth, charm, and order, yet also associated with death, war, the occult, pestilence, and atrocities.

Well, let's hope that the new year will bring good fortune and happiness to all of us.

How I began my new year

The pyramid-looking Luxor Hotel

New York, New York!

Treasure Island Hotel

Toni Braxton performing at Flamingo

Phallus-looking Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian

Paris Hilt...oops...Hotel

A lot of cranes at construction sites

Some statues at Caesar's Palace

Caesar's Palace

Fountain outside the Forum Shopping Mall

Busy holidaymakers

Busy traffic at Las Vegas Boulevard

Getting dark at Mirage

Denny's and other shops

So, I celebrated the new year holiday with my family at Las Vegas. In case you don't know, it is a gambler's haven. I don't really fancy gambling, so what am I doing there? Well, there are other things to do there as well. Like going for shows. They have all kinds of shows from magic show, impersonation/comedy, drag show, musicals, acrobatic/circus performances, topless shows etc. I didn't go to any either. Would like to but they can't allow kids under five years of age. Unless I hide Zoey in my pocket, that is out of the question. Err, so what else to do there? Shopping. Of late, it seems there are more shopping avenues there. Did not get anything though. Just took lots of pictures.

Just to do a comparison of my experience at Las Vegas 7 years ago and now:

Then: Lots of walking down the strip and visiting lots of hotels/casinos
Now: Spending most time looking for foodcourts and taking Zoey to lots of toilets

Then: Can hang around till very late - too excited to sleep
Now: Go to bed early - Zoey needs to sleep

Then: Carry a camera only
Now: Carry camera, and a bag packed with Zoey's items, and Zoey

Then: Buffet galore
Now: Eat at McDonald for smoke-free environment

Then: Can hang around anywhere
Now: Got rule for minors, so this indirectly applies to me too

Then: Can watch XXX on adult channel
Now: Watch Sesame street on kids channel

Well, I am not complaining. I betted one dollar on the slot machine and won 14 cents. That is, not before I have lost 46 cents first. So, it is a decent win anyway.

Las Vegas is probably a good place to visit if you can explore freely all that it has to offer. Of course, it will burn holes in your pocket too. But for old geezers like me, spending time with my family is good enough already. Doesn't really matter where although I won't mind doing it at the badminton gym, hahaha.

Talking about badminton, I have been playing non-stop for 3 days this weekend and my body is terribly sore now. Surprisingly, I played pretty well. Amy's women doubles partner commented that I was very consistent and making a lot of right shots. Eric, our UCSD student friend, who is usually very stingy with good compliments, even said I played not bad. I was really surprised too but I guess some days, everything just come together.

Hmm, perhaps I had been pretty down this past week and that made my game better. Maybe I was mad at something, so I decided to go all out in the games. And that is also why I had not been blogging for a while. It is hard to write something when you are not settled.

Hey, look at the picture to your right - looks like the middle finger. Hahahaa.

Anyway, the weather was good when we were at Las Vegas. Today, and yesterday, it was raining heavily in San Diego. I heard there was a big storm in San Francisco area and resulted in power failure in more than 600,000 homes. I even heard that earthquake and maybe tsunami is going to hit California soon. Indonesia is hit by flood on Jawa island and I heard that there is a fear that there could be an earthquake too. I was told that the volcanoes are all active at the same time now - never has this happened before. Now, I am not sure how correct my source of information is but people seem to think that this has something to do with global warming.

I haven't got time to check the stock market but the oil price hit $100 per barrel for a couple of minutes. And the Dow Jones index have gone below 13000 points again ahead of a possible Fed rate cut. Seems like the same scenario replayed all over again. Then, in December, there were all the bad news before the rate cut and as the date approached, the speculators rallied the market up.

So, how to keep your spirits up when you are down and there is bad news all over?

Well, I just randomly opened a book and found this poem:

Have Faith, and Expect the Best

by Beth Fagan Quinn

Faith begins
by believing
in your heart
that what is right
has a chance.

Faith is knowing
in your heart
that good can
overcome evil,
that the sun can also shine
in a rainstorm.

Faith is peaceful
and comforting,
because it
comes from within
where no one
can invade
your private dreams.

Faith is not something
you can demand
or command;
it is a result of
commitment to belief.

Faith is believing
in something
you can't see or hear,
something deep inside
that only you can understand
and only you control.

Faith is trusting
in yourself
enough to know
that no matter
how things turn out,
you will make
the best of them.

So, I guess we should never lose faith in ourselves.

Sometimes, it is hard for others to understand you. Sometimes, it is hard to help others understand you. No matter what you say or do, there is already a prejudice against you. At times like this, you can only hope that there will be someone somewhere soon to listen to your cries. Try to stay positive and do things that can make you feel positive about yourselves. Find someone that you can talk to. But, above all, don't lose faith in yourselves.

Google is trying to solve Global Warming

As I was searching for some stuff on GPS, I stumble upon a news report on Google's initiative to save the world! Actually Google is doing it through its subsidiary, Google.org, by investing in energy startups. It plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars by hiring engineers and energy experts to investigate alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and geothermal. The efforts will help reduce its mounting energy costs for running its vast data centers as well as fight climate changes and help reduce global dependence on fossil fuel. Google says its aim is to generate 1GW of renewable energy, enough to power the city of San Francisco!

I was just discussing with Amy about how Google is kicking Microsoft's ass and why we should buy some Google stocks. Ahem, 'some' is defined as less than the number of fingers in Mickey Mouse's hand. Err...how much is the stock now? $700. And I thought it was expensive at $480 a couple of months back. Google wants to make the world a better place to live and we should all gladly support its cause;)

Any benefits from increased CO2 level?

(Scenic view of Scripps Institution of Oceanography.)

Have you heard of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography? Come on, it is world famous for its solid ocean research and exploration activities. I have been to Birch Aquarium many times with Zoey and learned a great deal about some of the research activities at Scripps Institute.

(Green fluorescent proteins depicted along the head of amphioxus, a fish-like animal found in coastal waters.)

Several researchers were also studying the public health implication of soot in the due to the recent wildfire.

(MODIS satellite imagery captures smoke from Southern California fires drifting over the Pacific Ocean on Oct. 22.)

Related to the issue of global warming is the increased level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Two very interesting questions were raised by kids in the Institute's e-magazine.

1. Are there any benefits of increased levels of CO2?
2. How is animal life being affected by increasing levels of CO2?

Want to know the answers? Tune in to the next post ;)

Global Warming

Woah - tackling bigger issues now. It didn't even occur to me that the recent San Diego wildfire has anything to do with global warming until that Japanese reporter suggested to me that possibility. According to some sources, it seems that the frequency of wildfires has been rising in the last decades. Like the 2003 wildfire, some human culprits have been responsible for starting some of the fires. So one can argue that the number of fires have increased because there are more and more sickos who have nothing better to do than to burn down civilizations. Hmm, if you think about it, it makes sense - when it gets too hot, people can do stupid things.

So, how much has the temperature increase? Well, one degree Fahrenheit in the past century. When you consider that the difference in the average temperature between modern times and the last ice age was only about 9 degrees Fahrenheit, one degree is quite a lot. Where did all this heat come from? I think it comes from many sources. We live in a complex, delicate and dynamically changing ecosystem. What this means is that the balance of species - animals and plants, are intricately tied to each other. Just take a look at how certain species of animals and plants are now endangered or extinct due to human activities such as industrial development and pollution. I remember reading somewhere in one of the Scientific American magazines of a strange phenomenon where many 3-legged frogs were found. Roughly, I remember this was the explanation. Researchers discovered that farmers were disposing certain chemicals into the river which flowed into lakes/ponds. Certain types of snails thrived well in these waters. And these snails carry with them some kind of bacteria. The snails are preyed upon by the herons and they drop their pooh somewhere while flying. The pooh contains the bacteria which then wiggles its way into the baby tadpoles body and triggers some genetic change. As a result, a third leg forms.

So, you see, the ecosystem is very complex and delicate. You must have heard many times about the greenhouse effect and the depletion of the ozone layer. Many scientists now agree that human beings are primarily responsible for the change in the average global temperature. We burn forests to clear lands, we burn fuel to travel places, we burn fuel to power up our machineries and equipment. In the end, we suffer from all the pollution (smoke, CO2, dust etc.) - we get all kinds of respiratory ailments and we get hit by freak weathers (flash floods, wild fires etc.) and we are losing some of the important animal and plant species (herbal cures, anti-viral agents etc.). There is a natural balance in the greenhouse gases maintained by the animals, plants, the ocean etc. which is important to keep the temperature nice and warm for everyone to live in. Industrial activities by human beings, however, introduce more carbon dioxide gas and trap more heat in the atmosphere.

To read more about global warming, you can go to here.

We didn't start the fire - Billy Joel