DaddyDear

For those who’ve upgraded to Firefox 3, you’re probably sharing my agony of this crapy piece of work. The browser acts like a zombie for several minutes once it’s started, and the program crashes at least several times each day.

Luckily, I’ve found and upgraded the latest 3.0.1 release candidate which was released on 9-Jul. Test result is pretty satisfactory so far. Check it out at this mozilla ftp site.

Here’s the quick link to US English Windows Installer.

Good luck, and have fun!

This morning, on my way to work, I was driving along BKE towards Woodlands direction at 90km/h at the centre lane, and keeping my speed as stable as possible to maximize fuel economy. A blue malaysian registered bus started to appear in my rear view mirror and started to tail-gate me.

After about 30-seconds or so, the driver gave up on my persistence to keep within the speed limit and over-took my car on the right lane, and to my surprise, I saw another two buses doing the same. I’m pretty sure they were traveling at at least 110km/h in order to over-take me and drove off sop fast. Thought the speed limit for buses are 70km/h? Are foreign registered buses different from Singapore registered buses?

Managed to remember the 2nd & 3rd buses’ car plates: WFB1135 & JDG2264. Time was around 7.25am today.

Hope some Traffic Police folks would read this blog and start patrolling along this stretch of the road more often to ensure the safety of other road users.

At last I’ve received the official result for Sundown Marathon. I’m ranked 1738 out of 3599, that’s somewhere at the middle. Not too bad for newbie.

Have just “commissioned” the DIY Home Filer Server I’ve built from the parts I bought last Friday.

Hardware List (Total- S$465):

• Motherboard - Asus P5GC-MX/1333 (built-in LAN & Video chip)
• CPU - Intel E2180 Dual Core Processor (2 GHz)
• Memory - Corsair DDR2-667 1GB
• HDD - Maxtor Diamondmax 22 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache
• Casing - Cooler Master Elite 340
• PSU - Cooler Master 460W Extreme Power Supply

Operating System: Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server Edition (Free)

Acknoledgement:

• Keyboard (Borrowed from Vincent)
• CRT monitor (Borrowed from Ronald)

We’re using this server to store and share our home videos, digital photos, mp3, and all other files. Still short of a UPS to protect against accidental power trip. Will get one soon.

Installing the Ubuntu Server Edition is quite daunting at first, as there’s no GUI. I was really struggling with the “primitive” text-based system. Luckily, the documentation is very helpful and I’m starting to like this simple but powerful OS.

Since the CPU power is more than over-kill for a file server, I’m also planning to install VMware Server (oso free) to host a Virtual Windows Client to run my other Windows-based application.

We started the walk from Bt Chandu car park. Here’s the first picture I took at “Reflections at Bukit Chandu”:

This was the place where 1400 soldiers of the Malay Regiment fought against 13,000 Japanese soldiers in 1942. The building in the background is a memorial to the last moments of these brave soldiers of World War II and a place to reflect on their courage, the cost of war and the price of peace.

The downhill trail towards Hort Park is also very scenic.

Hort Park is very impressive. With so many things to see within such a small premises, it’s definitely a perfect place for wedding photo-shoot in Singapore.

Guess who is this 世外高人, meditating in the center of a circular garden surrounded by bamboo? Hahaha …

There are so much to see. We’ve covered only a fraction of the whole trail. Will definitely re-visit this place again. More coverage at mummyDear.

I’ve finally achieved my goal that I’ve set last year, that is to run my first Marathon, and it is also the first Singapore Adidas Sundown Marathon. The run was challenging, as the terrain was very different from the runs that I’ve previously had. Also, it started to rain when I was at the 38 km mark, making it even more challenging.

I’ve not received the official timing yet, but my stopwatch timed 6 hrs and 20 mins. Didn’t meet my target, as I planned to achieve under 6 hrs.

Here’s a picture of my BIB and my medal:

And here’re the zoom-in of the medal’s front & back:

Here’s some of my personal views on this event:

• First aid station is too far away, i.e. 3.8km. Would be ideal if it was at around 2.5 or 3km.
• Can’t find the distance marker for the beginning stretch. First one I saw was the 8km mark.
• Not enough distance marker. Should have one at every kilometer.
• Not enough bananas (got only one at 24.9 aid station & the other one at the finishing line). Would be ideal if they give out some bananas during the last 8-10km stretch. Felt extremely depleted during that stretch when I’ve used up my energy gel.

Other than these, I think the event was pretty well organized, especially taken into consideration that it was the first night Marathon in Singapore.

Came across this “wine library tv” in iTunes. There’s this episode on Robert Mondavi that caught my attention.

“Sarah Kemp, publishing director of Decanter said, ‘Robert Mondavi holds a unique position in the history of wine. This extraordinary man, through his vision, relentless energy and gritty determination changed the way consumers thought about wine. By putting California wine on the map he ensured the world knew that some of the worlds great wines could be made outside Europe, at the time a revoluntary concept He was deservably one of the wine legends of our time.’ ”

This extraordinary man passed away less than two weeks ago peacefully at the age of 94. One of his achievement that shook the world happened in the Grand European Jury Wine Tasting of 1997, where the Robert Mondavi Chardonnay Reserve was ranked number one.

Check out Cold Storage online, Robert Mondavi Carbernet Sauvignon 2005 is on sale at S$22.90 (UP S$31.40). Offer ends today.

Attended the Bordeaux Wine Tasting of 2005 vintage at Conrad Centennial on Monday. This is a very rare session with more than 70 participating Chateaus. As mentioned by mummyDear, I can’t really tell the differences between the different wines. All I can say is whether I like or dislike it. Did a check of my notes last night and realized that I’ve only tasted 13 reds and 2 sweet wines.

It is really a very fascinating and eye-opening experience.

Today is the last night we’ll stay in Japan, and the vendor took us out for a very special 8 course Kyoto style dinner.

The food is very delicious from the very first dish till the last, completed with Sake and beer. The restaurant setting is very high class and very beautiful - they even has an outdoor garden with waterfall.

1st dish: Appetizer - Sushi, bamboo shoot. bean, etc.

2nd dish: Sashimi

3rd dish: Steamed tofu with fish

4th dish: Baked prawn & fish (wrapped in bamboo leaf)

5th dish: fish, prawn & vegetables boiled in soy-based soup

6th dish: steamed crab meat wrapped in 竹笙

7th dish: Rice with shrimps, some pickled veggie & miso soup

8th dish: Dessert - Tea & dunno what, but taste superb

The weather is extremely good today as compared to past few days. Took a very long train ride from Hachioji to Shimbashi via Tokyo station, and switch to a monorail and alight at Odaiba-kaihin Park station.

Odaiba is an artificial island built on landfill in Tokyo Bay, and is a showcase for some of the most futuristic and interesting architectures and objects. For example, take a look at this “Water Bus”. It looks more like a space ship than a water transport to me.

Odaiba is also a great place for family and shopping, unfortunately, mDear and my two princesses are not here with me, and I’m not in a mood for shopping either.

Luckily, this place is full of photographic opportunities. For example, take a look at these flowers.

Also, the Ferris wheel is magnificently huge and awesome. Not sure whether it’s bigger than Singapore’s? The queue is rather long, so I didn’t bother to queue up for the ride.

The greatest find today is this little “town” call “Partire Tokyo Bay Wedding Village”, which is not even mentioned in the latest edition of Lonely Planet. This is an one-stop service provider for those who are planning for a wedding. The “town” is setup like a small French town with lovely flowers all over the place complimenting the lovely shop fronts and classy architecture.

Lastly … here’s Japan’s version of Statue of Liberty with the Rainbow Bridge as backdrop.