Should I live in the cloud?

My 15-years-old IBM laptop is near it's end of its life. The screen will freeze when I have more than 2 applications open, surfing the web is extremely slow, hard drive is small, and can't play videos etc with  numerous other small issues which bug me on a daily basis.

I am on a search for another laptop, something portable since I have a desktop for my use in the university. The criteria for the laptop would be :
- light-weight
- fast speed
- large storage space (hard drive)
- not be obsolete in 2 years!

I did a quick analysis of what I use my present laptop for and it comes up to these various purposes:
- surfing the internet
- writing papers/ reports
- reading
- I am able to access my desktop using the university VPN. Thus, programs would not be a problem.

Recently, I got very interested in the idea of owning a Google Chromebook. It operates almost entirely on the cloud with different types of apps. Typically, it is a ipad compressed in a laptop. The only drawback which deters me from getting it straight away is the lack of good referencing apps for writing my papers. Any suggestions or advise?

Dog wars

Things have not been all smooth lately with the dogs and puppies. Kaly is even more nervous after the birth and would bark at any noise or movement. As a result, Jet and the other puppies would follow.

Last week we came home after marking exam papers for BIOSCI 107 to find a notice from the SPCA and the Animal Control at our door. Someone complained about the excessive barking, and they came to check on it. As we were feeding the dogs, our new neighbour came knocking on the door. He was very impolite - complained about the barking keeping him up day and night, lost his $350 a week job because he overslept! ... and said he would call the cops to have the dogs taken away! Hannah and I were angry and frustrated - we had no problems for 3 years staying here, and then this new guy moved into the neighbourhood and this is what we got! We don't deserve this! We are sure he is the guy who screwed up our electric and internet as well!... STUPID!


We had to make a sad decision. Maybe it's better for the dogs as well as us to have Kaly re-home.


Sinead came to pick up Kaly at about 2pm yesterday. Kaly would be staying with Sinead and her mom permanently. Hannah and I were sad to let her go but we think Kaly would be more suitable in a place where she can roam around freely and she can bark without disturbing others.


Kaly followed Sinead most willingly and did not appear to be any issues. The fact that Kaly already knew Sinead helped a lot. I saw her to Sinead's van, gave her a kiss and asked her to behave herself. Kaly, we will miss you :( 

Martha's backyard

Yesterday, we took the chance to drive around a new part of Auckland (somewhere around Panmure and Mt. Wellington) while waiting for Tiger's new owner. We found Martha's backyard.... it is a shop that sells products from America! Hannah went to check out the shop first while I stayed with Tiger in the van. You cannot imagine the excitement on her face when she came back running and said that we should go in the shop together.

We ended up getting a few items which Hannah had always been craving for - Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, Louisiana hot sauce, soda drinks, Reeses. Too bad they do not have Twinkles :(

Tiger found a home :)

Tiger is now in his new home. His new owner is a Chinese professional couple. Eli and his wife have a German Shepherd puppy  and were looking for a new playmate for him. Thus, Tiger fits right in to their household. They have a house with a fenced-in yard where Tiger and the GSD will be able to play with each other. We met them yesterday afternoon in Albert Park. We had a quick chat and all of us decided that Tiger will be a good fit to their household. Also, they will be keeping his name as "Tiger" because the name just fit him so well.

Tiger and Lilith (formerly known as Tiny) 11 weeks old

We are left with two puppies - Tiger and Lilith (formerly known as Tiny). They are 11 weeks today. Some interested parties were asking for more pictures and we took the opportunity to snap a few more. Afterall, who can complain about more cuteness :)

Dive course - GUE Rec 3

This post is mainly for the divers, especially for John Majoris...John, you will definitely understand what we went through. This past weekend was the first half of the dive course we signed up for - GUE Rec 3/ TDI Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedure. This course is meant to enable us to dive a Helium mix to a maximum depth of 50 meters.

It was to date one of the most difficult course we have taken, mentally, physically and skill wise. The new thing about this course is the we are carrying a stage bottle for our dives besides a set of doubles on our back. Therefore, weight has definitely increased tremendously! Challenging skills such as hovering at 6 meters mark, in trim while doing gas switch, valve failure, OOG scenarios, no mask, no mask nor gas swimming 15 meters etc. proved harder than we expected. After the weekend, both of us were so tired and our muscle were so sore that we had to crawl out of the lake!

We are in recovering mode now, and hopefully by the weekend we will be able to get back to the lake to practice more. We are in no where near as good as we wanted to be! The second part of the course is at the end of June, and it will be, if not even more challenging.

So tired, so sore....

JJ in new home

Received a picture text from Pras this morning. Pras had taken a week off from work to keep the little guy company ... that is commitment! Looked like JJ and Pras are enjoying each other's company.

JJ and Poi Poi off to a good home

Pras from dogsports NZ came to pick up JJ this morning. He was so impressed with Jet and believed in the quality of his offspring that he convinced his friend, Bryce to pick up Poi Poi as well. Hannah and I are happy that JJ and Poi Poi are going to be owed by Pras and Bryce because they will be working with them in Schutzhund as well.

End of Semester 1, 2012

It is the end of Semester 1, 2012. I have officially finished my tutor assignments for the labs. Hannah and I will be marking the exams for both BIOSCI 101 and BIOSCI 107 in the upcoming weeks. Since it is already June (half a year has passed!), it is a good idea to do a quick review of the goals I have made for 2012.

1. Finish and publish the two papers I have been working on for the past 3 months (ON-GOING) .
2. Portions of the PhD research to be done : location recce (ACHIEVED), collaborators negotiation (ACHIEVED), literature review (ON-GOING), experimental design (ON-GOING).
3. Publish at least one paper from my PhD research before end of 2012.
4. Pass our GUE fundamentals (ACHIEVED)and Rec 3 (Trimix) (ON-GOING) .
5. Conduct at least one exploration dive on the Blue Creek resurgence with TechDive NZ.
6. Clock a total of at least 40 recreational dives and 10 technical dives  (ON-GOING) . 
7. Teach 2 labs per week (this will help with the monthly finances as well :) )(ACHIEVED)
8. Stick to a strict exercise regime ( I already have a regime, but sticking to it is another story :P). (OPPS!)
9. Run the Auckland Marathon.
10. Call home (Singapore) at least once every fortnight  (ON-GOING) .
11. Go home (Singapore) at least one time in year 2012 (not counting the wedding date!) (ACHIEVED).
12. Go back to Iron Mountain.

8.5 weeks... ears are standing up :)

Puppies are 8.5 weeks old now. There have been expressions of interest but unfortunately no one has yet to follow through and adopt any puppies yet. We have advertised in more online classifieds etc hopefully to generate more interest.

Today JJ's ears are totally up. Following closely behind is Poi Poi with one ear standing, then Tiny with the tip of her ears still drooping. Tiger is a bit slow in this area of development, making him look like Dobby (in Harry Potter) :)

JJ with ear fully up!

"Dobby" looking Tiger

Tiny (left) and Poi Poi (right)