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Weekend of Champions

30 Jul

I have amazing girlfriends and they inspire me with their grit, mental strength and focus. Over the weekend, three amazing women came out tops in their respective activities, two in golf and one in an ultra-trail race.

Girlfriend #1 defended her Champion title in the Women’s category in her golf club’s Annual Championship, Girlfriend #2 was the Nett Champion amongst men in a golf Invitational tournament while Girlfriend #3 romped to fourth placing in her category in the 100km race. A weekend of champions indeed! Well done, girlfriends, you ladies are simply amazing.

Change of Colors

27 Jul

Out of the blue, I decided to change the colors of two Monuments. I felt the original colors were not contrasting enough. Also the fluorescent green on the smaller Monument was patchy, I didn’t like it.

The new Martha Stewart Granny Smith green color beckoned and lo and behold, I painted it over the fluorescent green. But I couldn’t do the same for the blue on the bigger Monument because there’s green already. So I used Fire Engine red instead.

I like both the Monuments much better now. All they need is just a final gloss varnish for the finishing touch.

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700 Days

24 Jul

This is a crazy milestone and I’m not even sure why I am keeping up with it. Sometimes I can’t even play the game on my iPad Mini because the device has been unstable but I can launch the app just to get this.

For the record, I have kept up with the Daily Bonus for Candy Crush Soda for a span of 700 days; I think it is rather mind boggling, almost two years.

I started out on both the iPad and iPhone but somehow, on the phone, the chain has been broken several times. However on the iPad, it’s still going strong. So for every 100 days, you’d see a post on this crazy number.

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No Clearance to Migrate

19 Jul

I don’t normally do mass migration for the Citizens of Gigglesville. Every now and then, only one or two would leave with the max being five. The last big migration was back in January when M1 brought nine Citizens and one Friend (Spiny Lumpsucker) of Gigglesville with her back to the US. Thankfully, all passports issued had no problems.

This latest mass migration, a huge one with 36 Citizens, had been very challenging. First, to meet the deadline, all Citizens were carved almost daily. Then they were prepped just about every other night. However, I encountered a major hiccup at the last hurdle.

Sixteen Citizens have no clearance to migrate just yet because the passports issued for them had control issues. The numbers did not tally in other words. The immigration officer must have be sleeping on the job to cause such a boo-boo. The affected Citizens are the orange, red and purple species.

Luckily the next day the problem was resolved and they are ready to join the 20 to migrate. Thank goodness.

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Bedrock Bottom

16 Jul

I have said many times golf is a funny game. I thought I had hit rock bottom several weeks ago with my inability to play despite all these years at it. Then I managed to bounce back soon after and I thought from there on, it can’t get any worse and I should be on the upwards trend but guess what? I was wrong!

There is an even lower level than rock bottom and it’s called bedrock bottom…

Over the weekend, I participated in my club’s Annual Championship, a two-day tournament. And there’s just no words to describe the performance especially on Day One. Put it this way, it was as though I just picked up the game a month ago and bravely played in a crucial tournament that really tested one’s ability and mental capabilities.

Although there was only one OB’ed shot, one obvious shank that resulted in a lost ball, six dunked balls into the ponds, several duffs and mis-hits, these costly mistakes were enough to do me in.

The weather was perfect, the shoes were comfortable, the tennis elbow wasn’t even acting up so there’s really no reason to do all those that I did. Sigh… I am at a loss for words on this.

Thankfully on Day Two, I played better and restored some confidence. Maybe I am not quite ready yet to play competitive golf? After this experience, I hope there won’t be another undiscovered level beyond bedrock bottom to my golfing ability, that’s all I can say!

A New Green, Part 2

12 Jul

I had to try the new Martha Stewart’s Granny Smith green. But there were no new Citizens carved up, so Apeach gave me a hand on this with the platform that it is standing on. A perfect setting to see the glory of the green.

Isn’t it just a lovely and refreshing color? Apeach certainly looks happy.

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Ready for Migration

10 Jul

The three dozen Citizens of Gigglesville are completed and ready for migration. All they need now is just their passports which I am working on in between preparing for my design presentation. One has to multi-task when the situation calls for it.

I am so proud of this time-based effort. Mission will be accomplished once I meet up with my friend to hand over the Citizens who will go out there to spread their love and giggles.

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A New Green

9 Jul

Last week, I bought a new green color to add to my acrylic color palette for the Citizens of Gigglesville. I must say I have several shades of green, accumulated throughout the years and more added in recent months.

However, lately I felt the choices that I have are a wee bit too dull and predictable. And some of colors are even too old to be used. The Liquitex brand is most obvious having lost its strength (for lack of a better word) because it does not stick well or smoothly upon application. Then again, even the new Neon Green from Apple Barrel does not do too well on wood and I am not sure why. In essence then, only four shades are used on a rotational basis.

I like the new Martha Stewart Crafts’ Granny Smith green choice for a brighter and more refreshing look to add some zest to the Citizens of Giggglesville. Looking forward to using it soon!

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Seeing green!

The 2.1 Tracker

6 Jul

Recently in mid-April, I replaced my activity wearable the Xiaomi Mi Band2. All was fine and dandy but soon, there were problems. Within two weeks, the battery drained at a pace that was not normal.

Initially I didn’t think too much of it and attributed the quick drain to the setting whereby everything was turned on. So I disabled this and that but to no avail. It came to a point of being useless to wear a tracker that was unable to track anything.

Within half a day, the band would be drained to 40% from a full charge. Oh dear… I sat on the problem for a while but in the end I decided to do something about it.

I contacted the vendor and she suggested that I should go to a Xiaomi Customer Service Centre as she cannot help me, being just a reseller. So over one weekend, I went to the new Xiaomi retail shop that just opened, hoping that the service crew there can help me.

But no, they were not too helpful nor too pleasant. Hrmph. Maybe they were too busy attending to potential new buyers? After all, the shop just opened. Whatever it was, I was not impressed with their service attitude. But I did get confirmation of their Customer Service Centre located not too far away.

The next day, I followed up on this. Unlike the retail shop, the Customer Service Centre was helpful. They said the battery drain issue was not an unusual case and as the device was still under warranty, they will just replace the unit one-for-one instead of fixing the battery. Wow, I didn’t expect that.

With just an hour’s wait after the paperwork submission and device handover, I had a brand new replacement for the Mi Band2 wearable; call it the 2.1 tracker if you may because it replaced the second unit. And it has been working fine since. The first charge lasted three days shy of a six weeks duration.

As long as the one year warranty is still valid with a show proof of the purchase receipt, the Xiaomi Mi Band2 can be replaced if there’s any manufacturer’s problems with it. Just remember to unpair (luckily I remembered to) so that the new one can be paired with the smart phone. Here’s towards happy tracking of my activities!

An Early Halloween?

29 Jun

It was a late night and we were out. Whilst waiting at the traffic light, something caught our eyes and I quickly took a picture of it!

The van in front of us had a hand sticking out from the vehicle and resting near the number plate! My goodness. Surely it cannot be Halloween now in June with such a morbid decoration. Or heaven forbid, a kidnapped person’s hand. But the hand was not waving frantically for attention, moreover the van had big clear windows and it would be darn obvious if situation was not okay.

Whoever was sitting in there was just placing the hand in a comfortable position for grip. Why can’t the person sit properly up front instead of in the boot?