well, it’s the last day of 2010 which (for this year at least) means that i’m flying to Las Vegas again. it’s not as glamorous as you might think, though, because i’ll be arriving about five minutes before midnight PST which means i’ll probably see fireworks from the runway.
good thing McCarran is close to the strip.
today i asked my chiropractor/acupuncturist Dr. Guo if she had seen Aftershock, the recent film about the massive (7.8-8.2 on the Richter scale) earthquake that hit Tangshan, China in 1976.
while she hadn’t seen the movie yet, she told me that she was working in the hospital in Jinan (the capital of Shandong province, just south of Hebei province where Tangshan is) by 1976 and felt the earthquake over 400 kilometers away from the epicenter. as they began pulling survivors from the rubble, many were shipped to hospitals in neighboring provinces including the one Dr. Guo worked at.
crazy, eh?
light rain meant there was a thin layer of ice on the road that made driving a gross misadventure tonight. cars were skidding and sliding even at low speeds and i nearly slipped on foot as well.
nothing like a little adrenaline to warm you up on a cold winter night
they discharged Beka’s mom from the hospital yesterday afternoon and, aside from being a bit tired, she’s doing alright. thanks, everyone.
we took Beka’s mom to the emergency room on Christmas day for chest pain and they found out that she had 95% blockage in her arteries already. she spent the night in the hospital under observation and had an angioplasty yesterday where they put in two stents. she’s currently recovering in the intensive care unit so please keep her in your prayers. thanks, everyone.
when i was a kid, i thought Boxing Day was supposed to be for people to smile at each other, put their differences aside and start punching.
Merry Christmas.
‘twas the night before Christmas and Santa was busy;
he was already behind schedule and was in a big hurry.
he would drop off the gifts and move to the next home;
it’s a tough job for sure but St. Nick works alone.
he fumbled with the map in his sleigh’s glove compartment
and lined up his sights on a big block of apartments.
no chimneys were there and so he had to touch down
in a dark, narrow alley with trash on the ground.
he checked his list: train sets, dolls, board games and ice skates
then he shouldered his bag and climbed up the fire escape.
he went window to window and dropped off the toys
but on the way back to his sled he heard a strange noise.
“GIMME YOUR MONEY OR YOU’RE GONNA DIE!”
said the masked man with an evil glint in his eye.
the man held in his hand a big rusty knife
and Kris Kringle suddenly feared for his life.
“take what you want! just spare me, sir, please!”
with tears in his eyes, Santa dropped to his knees.
the man raised his knife and cruelly said “hush!”
and knocked Father Christmas face down in brown slush.
when St. Nick woke up, he looked for his sleigh
but the knife-wielding man had already gotten away.
he wasn’t aware of how long he had dozed,
the only thing left was a dismembered red nose.
Nikon just filed a patent yesterday for interchangeable sensors on their (rumored to be) upcoming mirrorless camera. according to the patent, different sensors will have different strengths (autofocus type, pixel count and burst speed) for different shooting circumstances.
personally, I’m very excited to see this sort of “out of the box” thinking being done by camera companies these days (Olympus also recently filed a patent for a modular DSLR).
it seems like we might be one step closer to getting our dream cameras soon.
you know how banks have security cameras and height markers on their doors so they can approximate the height of bank robbers arriving on/leaving the scene? what’s to stop them from just crouching/rolling/crawling through the doorway?
this is what i pondered while shaving in my car at the parking lot of a bank this afternoon.
