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Name: Steve
Country: United States
State: California
Metro: Orange County
Gender: Male


Interests: Travel, movies
Occupation: Engineering
Industry: Engineering


Message: message me
Yahoo: stevew918@yahoo.com


Member Since: 8/13/2005
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Friday, November 27, 2009

Travel plans

The cruises are so cheap right now!  I have booked the following cruises starting next week.

15 days through Panama Canal to Chile:  US$500 include room and food. How can I resist? 

Panama Canal tour DEc 09

Linked with 10 days cruise of Galapodas islands.   This is where Darwin got his inspiration of the Evolution theory that "Survival of the fittest". 

 galapagos tour DEc 09

We will see these and other out of this world sights! 

Iguanas

In Feb, I will be visiting the South Pole.  This is another 15 day tours.

South pole tour Feb 2010

I think these will be fun, although I do worry about getting cruise-burnt-out, and getting fat on unlimited good food on cruises!

Anyway, life is good!

 


Happy Thanksgiving and scatch my back please

First, Happy Thanksgiving to all.  I ate way too much this evening!  Turkey, Prime Rib, shrimp. pie, sorbet, muchi  ....  I am getting fat!

This evening I went to a relative's house for Thanksgiving dinner.  When I arrived, I was immediately drafted to peel four pounds of shrimps for shrimp cocktail.  While I was busy  peeling the shell off the shrimp, my back started to itch!  I want to scratch my back, but my hands were dirty with the shrimp shells.  What to do , what to do?

Then a guest arrived, so I said to him, "Happy Thanksgiving, can you scratch my back please".  He looked puzzled, as this is the first time anyone greet him this way!  Then I showed him my hand, cocked my head toward my left shoulder, and with sorryful smile and a begging look.  He smiled, "Oh!" and started to scratch my back.  I told him to move his hand up and left to get the itchy spot on my back.  But he scratched too soft!  So I said, "Harder please".  mmm, it surely feels good! 

Below is the shrimp cocktail I helped to make and eat!  Yummy!

P1140183

So next time we meet, when I cocked my head towards my shoulder, you would know what to do, right?  

Happy Thanksgiving!


Tuesday, November 17, 2009

EPIC movie reviews

Just got back from 3 weeks' trip to Asia and am still recovering from jetnag.  My brain is still a mush, not dissimilar to Matt's brain as he described in his overwork blog.   A for Apple, B for boy,  C for?  lol. I will catch up with travel blog later.  For now, here is two short movie reviews.

2012

2012_movie_poster2a

This is a very entertaining movie, the 2 hour 30 minutes went by fast.  It is about the end of the world as predicted for December 2012. The earth warms up drastically, kind of changing shape and magnetic poles.   See below link for a trailer.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810045661/trailer#16083516 

One advise: leave your tired brain at home as this movie does not have any logic at all.  Just relax and enjoy the ride.  If you like, "Indiana Jones"'s mindless roller-coaster rides, than you would love this movie.   9 stars out of 10. 

Red Cliff (part 2)

redcliff2yc6

This is a followup of my review of part 1.  To be honest, I am not totally impressed. If you have to choose between Red Cliff and 2012.  Go for 2012.

The only good point of the movie are the good looking actors. Other than that, it is below my expectation. It did honor the theme of the novel regarding the shrewd match of wits in the battles - such as, how to turn bad situations to one's advantage.   You would enjoy this movie, if you like to glare at good-looking macho asian hunks for two hours, lol. 5 stars out of 10.

 


Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Yes, I can "Fly"

Earlier this month, I visited Southern part of USA, and now I am in Taiwan.   I need catch up on some travel blogs.  During the US driving trip, I rented a car in New Orleans, and drove the SE region.  I visited Savannah (Georgia), Charleston (South Carolina), Biltmore Estate, Outer Bank and Kitty Hawk (North Carolina) and Fisherman Island (Virginia).  I am describing the Kitty Hawk stop today, the highlight of the trip to me, and will detail the other stops later.

 As some of you already know, Kitty Hawk is the place where the airplane was invented almost 110 years ago.   The Wright Brothers flew the world’s first successful heavier-than-air plane here. All the planes in the world now are based on the concept they invented.

2009 oct east coast 275

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This is the main museum building.

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There are several models of the planes the Wright Brothers test flew. 

 

During the day, there are talks and movies.  She was quite a good speaker and demonstrated the three smart inventions ideas by the Wright Brothers.   They owned a bicycle renting shop in Ohio, and many of the parts of the plane were actually bike parts. 

2009 oct east coast 310

This is another building which house hands-on exhibits and a hall that show movies. 

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This is a life-size model of the sheds that the Wright Brothers braved the wind and cold weather for several years before finally they succeeded.  They lived in Ohio, and would travel here (three train rides and two ferry rides away) and stayed here for a month or so every year to try out their ideas.  That must be an expensive hobby.  They selected here because it is remote (so the press would not know of their failed attempts), windy (needed to fly gliders that would help them finetune the shape of the plane and mechanical controls), and sandy ( to soften the crash landings). 

 2009 oct east coast 307

The rock at the front marks the starting place where they launched the flights.  The rocks further away marked the distances of their flight attempts.  The first rock was about 100 ft., the next 120 ft and so on.  If you look closely, there is a rock way at the end which marked the final attempt, about 850 ft away.  

It was starting to rain hard, and everyone went back to the museum buildings.  I was alone, and I start to  imagine the feeling of the history-making event over 100 years ago and how it changed the world. I wanted to make the most of my visit.   I walked from the launch point to the first marker.  I was soaking wet from the rain!   Then I decided to walk all the way to the 850 foot mark.  Suddenly, I did not know what made me do it.  I stretched my hands wide to my side, pretending they were wings, and imagined myself flying along with the Wright Brothers.  I would close my eyes briefly to sense the wind sound blowing by, and start running faster and faster.  It was fun!   I told myself, think back 100 years and feel the experience of first man in the world flying. That is the excitement moment of a "virgin" experience? lol.  Some people must have thought I was crazy!  A grown man acted like a kid, with arms outstretched, pretending to be a plane, hehe. Think back, I am smiling, as it was great fun feeling.  I was in my own little world, enjoying the moment.

Afterwards, I walked back a hundred feet and video tape the path so I can share with my Xanga friends. Here is the video!  Can you imaging yourself flying with me on our first flight of mankind? lol.

 

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Here is the marker at the 852 ft location!  Welcome to the Stevew918 airline.  Safe landing!  Hope you enjoyed the trip!

(Note from yesterday: oops, run out of time to complete blog, will update later today.) 


Sunday, October 04, 2009

travel

I plan to take it easy for the next several months and travel some.

Tuesday, flying to New Orleans and spend 10 days drivig through the southeast:  Louisiana, Georgia, North and South Carolina.  Never been to N. C and S. C.  Any suggestions of things to see?

Then after three days of rest, join a 10 days tour of Taiwan, followed by 12 days in Hong Kong to see my mom.  She jumped for joy when she heard I was going to be in HK for almost 2 weeks. 

On the horizon, Greece cruise, China tour, South America tour. East Europe tour. and more to come, hehe.  Life is good!



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