Willem's Planet

This little park is here in Dameisha and I stopped there after the bus dropped us off  (took the picture with the camera’s timer).   The Saturday worker group treated themselves to dinner at the Sheraton’s Italian restaurant .. great food and even if it’s on the expensive side, we agreed : well worth it.    The other two pictures of the LED striped buildings are from the short walk back to my apartment.   The colors change and then the new color runs across the building from left to right.

.. because we have to work tomorrow.   The second round of system testing is scheduled to start in a week and it feels as if we have 3 weeks of work to do before then.

It reminds me of these words from a report about the 2010 Commonwealth Games :  “Two years before the Games, I had told the organizing committee that time was not your friend,” Commonwealth Games Federation president Mike Fennell told reporters after an October meeting of representatives in Delhi. “And now, one year before it, I say, time is your enemy.”

It feels to me that we are there : time is our enemy.  It rushes up at us, a week at a time and it never ever stops.   Pictures from this morning : Bright Oil company’s pipeline out to the ships, shops and restaurants in Da Peng close to where we work open early, new office building under construction nearby; and that’s a Starbucks orange juice I grabbed at Hong Kong airport when I came in Monday night.

The first picture is the hallway downstairs in my Dameisha apartment building.  (It looks warm but it’s still pretty cold outside).    I took the other picture from my balcony.   The searchlights are from a little waterfront collection of shops and eateries that have reopened.   In the foreground is a gigantic ghost apartment/ condo building : it has been completed for more than 6 months now but is still completely unoccupied.   Some real estate developer sure had a lot of money to spend for no return so far. 

rsv

It was cold*  here today, about 10 ^oC (50°F).

*A relative term!  positively balmy this time of year to Europeans or those in the northern states of the USA.  I simply go by the Hong Kong Observatory’s Temperature Scale below.   But my apartment does not have heating, so it does matter when the temperature drops to 50°F : I have to wear warm clothes inside.

Yes, yes – I know Seattle is late to the New Year’s party, but 2011 has now arrived here as well.    The picture is of tonight’s fireworks at the Space Needle but I have to confess: from the television in my living room.  It’s cold outside!

Wishing everyone good health and happiness in 2011.

Still very cold and sunny .. looks like the temperature last night dipped to 23° F  (-5° C) and will only reach 36° F (2° C) today.    SOO .. 2010 is bidding us good-bye!   Shall we make like the Japanese? : drink up at year-end parties known as bonen-kai – ‘forget-the-year’ gatherings : )

For me 2010 was The Year of The Tiger, learning so much about China and about the cultural differences between East and West.   I made 8 trips there, each three or four weeks long (with some weekend trips to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Bangkok), and one trip to South Africa.    I did not learn nearly as much of spoken or written Mandarin as I wanted.   (But then one has to work for what one wants, right?).

With it being the year-end, let me quote something philosophical from an article in Bloomsberg Businessweek that profiles an Irish father-son real estate developer team, Paddy (father) and Simon (son).   During the real estate boom years they borrowed  €800 million (that’s almost 1 billion $US) from the now-infamous Anglo Irish Bank to buy hotels and build golf courses.   They are now €700 million in debt.   The reporter says Paddy now looks back and offers many philosophical asides, this one among them.  Ready? 

The illision in our lives is attachment.  Yesterday’s history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift – and that’s why we call it the present‘.

Well, I wanted to go check out the Microsoft Store in the Bellevue Square mall, and so I did.   Not a very good picture – I felt a little spare between all the geeks to take a picture of the store (They might think ‘What’s with this guy? Is he not used to anything?’ .. I need to ignore that of course, if I want good pictures).   But in the right corner they have a demonstration going of their new Kinect system for the Xbox.  The Kinect is a single sensor bar that contains two depth sensors, and a standard RGB camera.   It enables interactive video games with the Xbox.  Depth is a huge feature of the Kinect, and the cameras can track both your movement from side-to-side, as well as front-to-back and up and down, making the entire range of movements potentially game controls.   The Kinect also features a built-in microphone that allows voice-activated commands when applicable, and the vocal feature does pop up in games now and again.     The ‘game’ they demonstrated was a dance routine that the player needs to do, and then you get a score.   The system has been very successful, selling 2 million units in the USA so far.  (I think I read somewhere that the Xbox itself has not really made money for the company).

The rest of the store is nicely laid out with notebook computers from Dell, Sony and HP (of course loaded with Microsoft products and Windows 7), and mobile phones with the new Windows Phone 7 system on.

Like my new watch?  It’s a belated Christmas present to myself.  It’s a Seiko 4R15 Stainless Steel 200m Self Automatic Diver watch.  (No, I’m not going to dive to 200m with it).  It is very heavy, and it may be too big for my wrist (is it?) – well, doesn’t matter.  I love the 3 6 9 12 numbers on it that shines in the dark, and the black and silver.

I finally got all my ‘paperwork’ processed – the pile of mail, receipts from my trips and collectible little items such as stamps and currency notes.  The little ‘charm’ stamps were handed out in Hong Kong at the 7-11s when big purchases were made (big being relative : more than US$10).   The other two pictures are close-up inspections of my R200 (US$30) South African notes.  In May of this year all pre-2005 notes were recalled by the South African Reserve Bank due to concerns with counterfeit notes in circulation.  It’s actually a problem in China as well – and as we tell each other at work there : what to do if the ATM spits out fake notes?  1.  You have to recognize them as fake, 2. The bank is probably CLOSED and 3.  Better learn to say  这是从ATM假注 Eng. This is fake note from ATM : (