Please Don't Stop The Music

2015 and still a good system

When we first moved into our new house in Tennessee, I remember getting a 5 speaker surround sound system. It has a 3 CD (Compact Disc) changer, dual cassette tape (what?), Dolby Surround Pro Logic, AM/FM radio, 3 step dynamic bass boost, subwoofer ready, 5 different preset sound configurations (optimal, jazz, rock, techno, classic), 120 watts, alarm clock, and many buttons...

2005-2006

Throughout the past twenty years, it has moved with me seven times. Proving that it was made with quality in mind. I have never had a problem with it. I have never needed to repair or modify it.

The speaker cabinets are not magnetically shielded, it does not have the bells and whistles of today's technology (no optical out/inputs obviously)... but it still works great. It still sounds great.

It was usually always hooked up to my TV/DVD/console entertainment system. But in my current set-up, my flat TV serves as a 2nd monitor for my computers where I use my, also old, Creative Labs 5.1 surround sound system.

I will keep it as long as I can dance and it plays the music loud.

P.S. It is a Philips Magnavox FW754P Mini HiFi System.

McKing Burger

I randomly thought about this the other day.

When I was growing up in Arizona, I remember there use to be a McDonald's near a highway overpass.  In fact, I just took the time to check it on Google Maps and the McDonald's is still there (yes, amazingly, I still remember the address).  I don't remember my exact age, but I was under the age of 9.  I remember going to this particular McDonald's in my youth.  A few years later a Burger King opened up across the street from said McDonald's.  Depending on if we were going to town or going home determined if we ate at McDs or BK because of the median. 

I remember one day asking Mom or Dad, I can't remember who I was with, if I could try a Whopper.  I know I did the same with McDs asking if I could try a Big Mac.  In my teenage years, I remember my parents telling me a story about me asking to try a whopper/big mac.  They said they knew I was growing when I was asking to eat more.

About that Google Map lookup I did... it appears that... since 1996 that particular area has grown.  I just remember a McDs and BK.  Now, there's a wal-mart, Kohl's, KFC, Game Stop, Starbucks, Texas Roadhouse, Cracker Barrel, and several hotels.  It looks like that place has grown up in the past 16 years...

10 Years 4 Cameras

Cameras Over the Decades



Note: I have re-sized all the pictures to 1024; it makes it faster to upload.

Note2: Since photobucket does not provide free hosting any longer, I am re-capturing the photos and re-uploading them. No idea what the quality will be like.

Over the past decade, I have owned four point and shoot cameras.  Along with that, I have learned more about photography and manual camera settings.

I can't remember if this was the first digital camera we had, but we bought it in 2002.  It was a Kodak Easyshare DX4900.  It had a tiny LCD screen, plastic finish, 4.0 megapixels, and a cool self lens cover that moved when you flipped the on switch.  It used CCD as it's image sensor and had an optical viewfinder.

I know we had a camera before this 4900, but I can't remember what we had.  I remember taking the above picture with both cameras and comparing them and felt amazed by its detail.

That's an MP3 player?! It's so huge!

This picture is from 2004 while I was in college.  You can see how dated this picture is from the Creative NomadZen Media Player that is basically a harddrive.

Later on we bought Mom a camera.  It was a Kodak Easyshare DX4530.  It was 5.0MP and it it had more buttons on the back.

In 2007, I replaced my Kodak with a Canon Powershot SD800IS.

So itty bitty

Such a huge screen!

The 800IS had a plastic and metal frame.  I really like the metal feel, but if you drop it, it will get dented and the dents are difficult to...er...um... "undent".  With this camera I could adjust the ISO speed and this marked the beginning of my studies of photography.  Unfortunately, it had very little manual control, therefore my learning was limited.  I had studied about F stops and shutter speed, but I couldn't manually control those on this camera.  I could only control the ISO speed (if I remember correctly).

But I learned about macro shooting and made plenty of macro shots.

I've never learned what these are called

I wonder what's on TV

I missed a spot painting

I was trying to get a pic of the frog

I was obsessed with blurry backgrounds to focus on the subject.

This camera had effects, so I learned how to do that.

Red is my favorite color

In 2010, I replaced the SD800IS (right) with an SD4000IS (left).

800IS has some battle damage

Super W I D E screen!

As you can tell, my old 800IS has some battle scars.  I've dropped it several times but it still worked perfectly.

First picture with my 4000IS

I bought this 4000IS camera with a quick review because I was leaving for China the very next week and had to ship it overnight.  This camera attracted me because it was has a wide lens, super slow motion video, and semi-manual control.  I could manually set the shutter speed and the aperture would set automatically OR I could manually control the aperture and the shutter speed would be automatic.  And the lens aperture had a very low (or high? I don't know the terms well enough) value of F2.0.

I took the same picture with both cameras, but I couldn't find the 800IS photo.

The only problem is that the only control was a dial wheel.  You had to be quick to switch settings.  Luckily, I'm pretty good at memorizing system interfaces so I could navigate the settings quickly.  And as you can see, the screen is much wider but there is no optical view finder.  I would often use the optical view finder when my battery was low.

I guess I like poweraid and doorways...

Lost in China

I gave my 800IS to my cousin Reuben.  The camera eventually was lost in China due to a pickpocket; Reuben left the hand strap dangling from his pocket and as we were boarding a bus, a man crowded up against Reuben and then suddenly left.  We sit down on the bus and we realize Reuben's camera is gone.

Fast forward to 2 years later.  The 4000IS had a problem.  Many models had the problem of dust getting into the lens and the lens gears jamming up.  I never had the lens gears jam up on me but dust did get into the lens. 

 

Well that doesn't fit quite right

This camera met its fate when I tried to clean the lens.  I opened it up, got scared, and put it all back together.  I couldn't stand the dust speck that was present in most of my pictures so a few months later I opened it up again.  I had to open the lens housing and get a lens brush in there to clean it.  I put it back together and it worked however the lens gears were all out of whack and it was stuck in the open position.  So, this time I opened it again and adjusted the gears.  Unfortunately, I forgot to remove the battery this time around and when I plugged in the cable for the flash, the flash went off.  I imagined I shorted something out because it wouldn't power on.  I waited a day and it still wouldn't power on.  My mother had just arrived to China and I wanted a camera to take pictures.  I had actually had my eye on a particular camera for a while and was looking for an excuse to buy a new one.  And no, I didn't purposefully break my 4000IS.

So, 2012 and my latest camera was purchased in China but made in Japan.  I bought it alone so it was quite entertaining to buy the new camera.  The sales girl didn't speak any English so I did my best to try to communicate.

That's quite a honker

My newest camera is a Canon (again!) Powershot SX240HS.  It is a compact superzoom.  I've had my eye on this camera for a while but the reviews said there are two problems with it.  One is the white balance seems sub-par and the popup flash is right where I hold the camera.  Other than that, it has full manual control.  As well as Tv and Av settings.  It has some new bells and whistles that I probably won't use but I'll try them out for fun.  The aperture is a little higher (lower?) than my 4000IS, it's at 3.5 compared to 2.0 from my old one.  Instead of a CCD sensor this one uses the (not so) new CMOS image sensor.

This camera has better controls.  The camera is a little bigger than my previous camera but that's okay to me.  I was given a 4GB SDcard and pouch for free, so whenever I 'm not using my camera, I put it in the pouch to keep it as dust free as possible.

I read that the battery life was also sub-par but thankfully the 240HS uses the same battery as the 4000IS so I now have an extra battery and extra SDcard! 厉害！

Dragon fountain

Day 6,7, & 8

Day 6

Monday, Jan 30

We departed my Mom's house after lunch; we took our time getting ready to leave.  We headed to one of Dorothy's favorite shopping stores called H&M (located in Atlanta).  Dorothy commented that the store was much smaller than the one in Hong Kong.

After shopping we ate at Olive Garden.  I love their salads so much!  Dorothy ordered soup and she really enjoyed it.  I had something new there, it was shrimp with cheese ravioli. It was really good, but I ate too much. 

We proceeded to Chattanooga and stayed at my grandpas house for the night.

Day 7

Tuesday, Jan 31

For breakfast we headed to IHOP.  Dorothy ate chicken and potato soup for breakfast.  I had a new combo of Belgian waffle, eggs, and bacon.  Then we headed to Ruby Falls.  Dorothy enjoyed the view and liked the tall castle-like building (picture 1).  We looked at souvenirs before heading down into the cave and Dorothy wanted to look at them again before we left.

Down in the cave, Dorothy commented that this cave looked different from the one in China.  Although, I'm sure the natural formations were similar (ie stalagmites, stalactites, etc).  We had a great tour guide that has worked there for 18 years.  After the tour, we spent a lot of time looking at souvenirs.  Dorothy wants to buy some things, for her family and friends, that are unique and preferably not made in China.

Then we headed to Hamilton Place Mall just to have a look around.  After that we headed to my hometown.  We headed there earlier than I expected so I stopped by my neighbors house for a visit.  Then we visited a teacher from my high school.

We met some of my friends for dinner at 8pm at a mexican restaurant.  I wanted Dorothy to try a stuffed poblano pepper.  She liked it.  While sitting there for some reason, I kept listening for Chinese.  One of the waiters came and said "24" in Spanish (that was Dorothy's order), but I didn't hear it because I was listening for Chinese. 

I forget to plan a place to stay for the night but thankfully my hometown neighbors offered a place to sleep.  Thank you so much Mr. and Mrs. P!

 

Day 8

Wednesday, Feb 1

We met some more of my friends for lunch and they enjoyed listening to some Chinese culture that I shared with them.

I gave Dorothy a tour of my hometown.  For those of you who know me personally, you know that the town doesn't seem that impressive.  But Dorothy enjoys seeing the countryside.  We stopped by a few shops looking for unique gifts but didn't find any that Dorothy liked.

We headed up to my Uncle and Aunt's house and Dorothy caught a nap on the way up there.  My relatives have a small poodle and Dorothy played with Max (the poodle) for most of the afternoon before dinner.  There was also three cats that entertained Dorothy (picture 2).  We waiting for my Uncle and cousin's to show up for dinner.  

We had a wonderful dinner!  We ate honey baked ham, fried okra, mashed potatoes, pinto beans, deviled eggs, mac and cheese, and cornbread.  My Aunt made me my favorite cake for my birthday, red velvet.  Then Dorothy gave out the gifts that we bought for everyone. 

Day 4 and 5

Day 4
Saturday, Jan 28

We went to a nearby mall about an hour away (is that really nearby?) and went shopping. I took her to an outdoor mall and thankfully the weather was pleasant. She really wanted Chinese soup for lunch so I punched in Chinese food in my GPS and it took me to one nearby. The lady at the Chinese restaurant was born in Hong Kong but grew up somewhere else.

Dorothy likes a certain style of clothes. She doesn't like mature clothes; she prefers the style that young people wear. So, I took her to Rue21 and Gap. I took her to other places like Dillards and JC Penny, but she thinks those are too expensive. There are no Gap stores in mainland China, but one just (or soon to be) opened up in Hong Kong. At the Gap, Dorothy found some clothes that she really liked and they were on sale; 2.99 (plus Tax)! She bought 4 tops.

We stopped by Best Buy to buy mom a new camera. I found a decent inexpensive camera that came with a bundle (case, sdcard, and extra battery). It was a Saturday, so it was somewhat busy. I had to wait for about 10 minutes before they ran and got the camera for me.

We headed home and I can't remember what we did for the rest of the evening, I think I was quite tired from running around for most of the day. I don't even remember what we ate, but I know that I passed out after dinner. Oh yes, I was still so full from lunch that I didn't eat dinner. Mom cooked onion soup, ham, and fried squash. Dorothy really like the fried squash. Also, Dorothy learned how to use the washing machine.

Day 5
Sunday, Jan 29

I guess we're finally recovered from jet lag. I have somewhat normal sleeping hours. I usually get tired around 9pm and wake up at 5am.

This Sunday, I took Dorothy to a Dollar Store. Dorothy said that it looks similar to the store near her house in China. Then I washed my car at one of the public car washing places. Then we bought some groceries for lunch.

I cooked Native American Frybread for lunch. I taught Dorothy how to shape it for me and she made some silly shapes and faces. She also used some leftover dough to make Chinese New Year bread. Along with the frybread, we had pinto beans, roast chicken, and mashed potatoes.

Then we went over to Aunt Pam's and Uncle Jim's house. Some of my stuff was still in Uncle Jim's closet, so I went over there to clean it out. While I was cleaning it out, Dorothy looked at pictures with Aunt Pam.

Finally back at home about 9pm. I was tired and tried to stay away another hour but I fell asleep and woke up at 5am.

This week, we're off to TN to visit some family and friends and to show Dorothy my hometown!