10 years

10 years. How time flies! Thank you for standing by me all these years, especially when things were not going as expected. And thank you for bringing Ren and the joy he brings, and for bringing him up to become such a fine kid.

Looking forward to many more 10 years.

Stuck in front of a desk

Haha, it is official. I hate being stuck in front of a desk, staring at a computer screen. Unless it is playing games, of course.

Being given a desk job is torture. 8 hours a day, within 4 walls, looking at the computer. That's not what I want. I really prefer being with people, interacting with them, talking to them. Not all the time, just to brainstorm ideas, talk through solutions. Eventually, things still needs to be put into documents, to be documented down by typing at the computer. But it is very different because there is that people-to-people interaction.

Let's see how it all works out.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today also happens to be the 15th day of the first lunar month, traditionally the "Valentine's Day" of the Chinese. So it is a double Valentine's Day, something that happens every once in a while.

Probably see a lot more weddings today...

Broke upgrade to Linux Mint 16... sigh...

Okay, my bad, I tried to upgrade my system from Linux Mint 15 to 16 using apt, and I think I broke the installation quite badly.

Have been trying to fix it for quite some time now. Still doesn't work.

Anyway, what I did:
Replace the repositories to point to Linux Mint 16 instead.
apt-get update
apt-get distro-upgrade

I don't remember much after that. The system couldn't boot properly, first giving problems with X. Tried to fix that, thinking it could be problem with Nvidia drivers... and now, it just shows a black screen on boot up.

Guess I may have to reinstall the whole things from scratch... ouch.

The LEGO Movie

Just caught this movie the other day. The LEGO Movie. Being a LEGO fan, with my son also very into LEGO recently, it was something that we both wanted to watch. Go catch the movie, you won't be disappointed, especially if you are a LEGO fan.

The minifigures move like minifigures, with arms and leg moving only along one axis. You will recognise some items from the various LEGO series. Even the LEGO Star Wars series had a short bit in the film, with the Millenium Falcon turning up with Han Solo, Chewbacca, C3PO and Lando.

Most importantly, my son was taught that he doesn't need to buy every LEGO set there is. He can use the parts that he has to build things that he wants, without having to follow the instructions each time. Well, not that he does, anyway. Just look at his Imperial shuttle. And he even has a TIE fighter and X-Wing now (okay, these were built with quite some help from me).

But while you can use LEGO parts to build your own stuff, minifigures are harder to "configure" on your own... and thus the recent craze is to get minifigures...

LEGO Imperial shuttle

My son showed this to me the other day. I asked him what it was, and he told me it was the spaceship that Darth Vader has in Star Wars.

I think he was referring to this, the Imperial shuttle that he saw at Legoland California.

Kids can be so creative.

A different path

Today, I officially ended a journey that started in 2005, and tomorrow, I will be embarking on another journey, a different path. No fanfare, just a simple thank you to the people who have been with me.

I will miss the life at sea. The sunrises and sunsets, the beautiful night sky full of stars. The rough seas, the sea breeze.

Most of all, I will miss working with the people.