Nov
6
Nikon d200: first pictures
Filed Under Daily
There is a huge difference with the panasonic! The very first good pictures:
Nov
6
Lens today?
Filed Under Daily
I read on the tracking website for EMS Hong Kong that the package delivery failed because they could not locate the addressee. Hopefully, they will try again today and I will be around to receive it. Yesterday evening, Nils and I, we watched a Korean movie, "Teaguki", "The Brotherhood of war" in english (Here). It was very good but a bit too long for me, two hours and 20 minutes. Damn Nils! He reminded me of my promise to watch it. I told him to look for "Enemy at the gates" (Here).
Good swim this morning. Peter could only pass me one time and half. He used to be much faster before he left two weeks for vacation. I am proud of myself. Nowadays, it is a real pleasure to swim in the fast lane and glide through water. It seems so easy to pass ordinary people. Only the team squad and professional swimmers are faster than me. Considering the fact I never had any training and just swim to relax, I am quite satisfied with the outcome.
10:40 am: The lens is in my hand, Nikkor Lens AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5~5.6G IF-ED
Nov
5
This Monday will be painful!
Filed Under Daily
My body is sore from the hike yesterday at Mt Barney. I knew it was a hard walk. I had a very good sleep though. Not long enough but very good. I stayed up a bit late to finish all the pictures formatting for my blog. It is time consuming to maintain this blog but it is lot of fun. Having a blog forces me to do things I would not do, to make my life a bit more colorful. The EMS postal tracking service from HongKong is out of order so I do not know where my lens is!
Two things would make this Monday better than it has started: my lens and a massage. Looks like I ain’t gonna get either one! Yea a good Swedish massage! I’d pay some money for a good massage. Any taker?
Nov
4
Unforgettable Mt Barney!
Filed Under Hiking
So was Gary Manning. How many people do you know, in life, who would take a stranger to a place 130 kms away and go on a hike when everyone else did not make it for x reasons? Many people would just go home and wait for the next event. Not Gary! I am glad I was part of this unusual trip with a very determined and generous person. The trip itself was more of a “pellerinage” shall I say. Mt Barney was a bit like that too. The way to get there was dry, ugly, hard and full of flies. But when you get to the creek, you forget for an instant all the pain, and you just admire nature. In many ways this hike today was unexpected and strange but in the end it was worth it. I do no think I want to do it again in the near future unless I know Gary might be part of the trip. I owe him this day. I got bitten by a cat fish! I was bleeding.
Full Album: Here
Best-off: Here
Nov
4
Sunday dinner
Filed Under Daily
I wanted to post this dinner yesterday but I was too tired and it was too late. I am turning green as you can see.
Nov
3
Back to work
Filed Under Daily
On a Saturday! I needed lots of self-motivation this morning. I really wanted to sleep more and not to go back to the lab. I ended doing my swimming routine and I went back to work to finish few things. Hopefully, it won’t be too long. I cannot wait for tomorrow’s bush walk at Mt Barney. Perhaps, the new hikers will be nice and friendly. It is never exactly the same people but it looks like that few dynamic new hikers are finally joining us. The lens is in transit in Australia. It seems that it went through custom. I knew it was a good idea to buy the camera and the lens separately to save on some tax. I wish it was faster but this is all because of Paypal. It took exactly 5 working days for it to process the whole bank transfer. I am very annoyed by Paypal now. I will avoid to use it in the future.
Nov
2
Friday dinner
Filed Under Daily
Tonight a lot of fruits and vegetables to go with my roasted chicken.
Nov
2
Rise of Nations
Filed Under Daily
Yesterday finally it happened! Anne, Fabien, Kegel, Nils, and Paul joined me in this great online game: a person in real life, a person from internet and my family members all together on a computer screen. I would love to have a person I run/swim with and a person I hike with joining as well. I doubt it will ever happen.
The sad note is that my team (Kegel, Nils and myself) lost the game. I was as usual a bad player so I sent the last nuke to trigger the armagedon, meaning it was a DRAW. Next time, I will block that option. It is not nice to use it and you don’t really need it. I need to play more with Nils so we can coordinate our actions better. He is the very first flatmate I play games with online and I’ve been sharing for 13 years now. I had a lot of fun. I wished we did not lag that much but it was “playable”.
I didn’t sleep enough yesterday. The neighbor above me was really noisy and I didn’t have any alcohol to help me to sleep. The excitation from the game didn’t help either. When I loose I always want to have a revenge. Finally, the intensive swimming this week really killed my shoulders. I felt every single lap I had to count today. Not enjoyable at all!
Nov
1
Chased by a chick at the pool!
Filed Under Daily
Nice swim we both had, I believed! A girl in a blue suit jumped suddenly in the pool and she was fast. I was up to the challenge. I had nothing to loose since I already did my 4kms. I could keep up and maintained a decent 5 meters between us for another 2kms. I think she got the idea of the game after few turns because we both accelerated :). I felt exhausted after she left but more importantly I felt a bit lonely. It is always nice to find people who swim about the same speed as you. I am looking forward to seeing her again. I am sure she is much faster, it was just one of these good days for me.
Peter, another swim mate, is back. He is always as good but a bit out of shape after 2 weeks and half of vacation in Europe. He needed 6 full turns to pass me first and then 12 turns after and he couldn’t do it again. Maybe I am getting better?
Oct
31
I just hit the wall. That hurt! It happens sometimes and today was not a good day for it to happen. My shoulders are really sore.
This morning, I tried hard to convince my body to reproduce the exploit from yesterday. It remained deaf to any argument I could provide, from sweet-talk to challenge motivation. I had to agree with my body. It was just too much 7 kms and it won’t happen again! The good thing is every time I do something beyond my limits, it seems so easy to do the usual stuffs after.
Here is a nice graph of my blog stats (number of hits per day). Not too bad considering that only 7 people, I know, are checking it. How come people don’t put more comments? “Lewsers”!
