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Byebye Atlanta
Having accepted an offer from HP lab, I am moving to California. We took a three-day trip to Napa Valley, visited some vineries, drank the wine, and stole some grapes. Calistoga is kid friendly. Although Amber can't really do the cheers, she was quite busy feeding the goat, watching the old faith geyser, and exploring the petrified forest.
We are going to miss the wonderful time here at Atlanta though. It's been seven years. Whether it is strolling under the sunshine, playing in the swimming pool or the yard, shopping for the fruit, or simply exploring the bedroom on Sundays are forever in our memory.
Every story has an end. This blog starts with memory and ends with it.
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Funny pictures
I took some time off the work and browsed my photo collections. There are some really funny ones of Amber.
She still can not speak a single word, but I guess there are a lot she wants to say, just from her facial expressions.
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Stroller
I have been really busy for weeks.
Summer is already here, but this year is not so hot in Atlanta. Amber gets out in the stroller with grandma every morning.
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Amber: eight month
Time went by fast. Amber is already eight month now. When we went to see Nico, she reminded us how small Amber was when she was born. Babies are growing everyday!
Amber can sit well in a chair now. But she just hates to be face down. So crawling is still a long way to go. How can we have her practice more?
Sometimes Amber likes to call dada, but this week is definitely mama's week. Amber sings mama all day long every day and totally forgot my name.
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Unresearch party
Today is the annual unresearch party at John's home. This is probably the last one I am going to attend. How many times so far?
John's pond is getting fancier each time I visited. He sure can take a second job as a gardner.
Audrey can play well along now, not a small baby any more. I thought she was shy, but I guess I was wrong. It's really funny to see the kids play with the camera. Neck strap just slipped through their waist. I am ready at any minute to perform a save jump to catch this expensive toy.
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Montreal: La basilique Notre-Dame
A few blocks behind the convention center, it costs $4 to get in. Not a bad business at all. I don't recall I ever visited a church that sells ticket.
It also allows flashes, which I think is a bad idea. Disruptive to the people there and not helpful to get decent pictures either. Auto-flash is on by default with almost every small digcam on the market. Most people, I think, won't bother figuring out how to turn it off.
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Montreal: Chinatown
This is what a real Chinatown looks like, as compared to what Atlanta has. It reminded me of the small alleys back at downtown Shanghai. Both familiar and foreign. Quite a surreal experience when walking along the street in drizzle. Home sick again?
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Montreal: Palais des Congres
CHI this year is more fun than last year's. Even the bag is better than previous years'. It has a zip now! I was SV last year and missed many interesting talks. I must say, this year's morning madness is the best part of the conference. It is talent show: peotry, song, and even rap.
I did not have much time to take photos though. Too heavy to have both the camera and laptop in my backpack. I missed many interesting moments at the conference.
At first glance, the convention center was a somewhat dull design. It also had some usability issues with the design of the rooms. However, once the sunlight hit through the glass wall, it's magic time. Simply put, the light transformed something ordinary into something magnificant.
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Montreal: sculpture
There are many interesting sculptures around the city. In front of the Banque Nationale de Paris, downtown Montreal, McGill College Ave, there is the "The Iluminated Crowd". Quite a strange piece of art in the middle of business center. I thought it was white, but it turned out that it was actually yellowish. I kept asking direction for the wrong sculpture!
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Montreal: Cirque Du Soleil
Only one word: wow! Thanks to the conference reception, we got front row view without any expensive show ticket! Canon 20D's high ISO performance never disappointed me. Because of my machine gun's approach, soon all of my memory cards were quickly filled up. I need more memory!
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CHI 2006 Montreal: downtown
This year CHI is at Montreal this year. Because of the high registration fee and the cost of international trip, I hesitated at first to attend the conference. I am glad that I was able to make the trip at the last minute.
I almosted ended up with being stranded at Canada, though, thanks to the unknowledgable Delta agent at the airport. She insisted to took away my I-94 form, which I needed to get back to US.
Some may argue that the photos shown here, Sin City-ish, are not what Montreal really looks like. I don't know. Along St. Catherine, you can spot many neon signs like this at night. It's not that bad though. With waste paper flying in the air, it gave you a sense of reality. It reminded me scenes in King Kong. The best shot in the film, I remember vividly, is the moment when Carl saw Ann through the reflection of the door.
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Amber: new skirt
We went for Easter egg hunt this Saturday at Lake Acworth. Unforntuantely, the event was over in less than a minute and we were almost an hour late :-(
However, Amber was so happy to be out and I would say this was the happiest weekend for her so far. She almost laughed nonstop all day long. So I had a good time with the camera. Amber also began to murmur a lot today.
We put the skirt on as it's getting even hotter. Apparentely, Amber wan't so excited just because of the skirt. She can't wait to have less cloth on her!
I played with Photo Story 3 and edited a short movie out of some photos. The software is pretty easy to use and runs fast. Thumb's up to Microsoft on this piece of free software.
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Amber: first hair cut
It's mid spring time and the temperature is going up. We finally decided to give Amber her first hair cut.
Mommy thought it was easy. She tried the razor at first. It did not work well with Amber's soft hair. It got rather sticky with the soap. Then we did it with a hair clipper. It was better but still a bit rough. Amber sure did not like the sound of the cutting machine.
Quite a funny head after the cut.
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St. Patrick's parade
This is the second time I was at the parade. Last year, I was alone with Jack for photo shoot. The parade was pretty much the same as the last year, but this year I have my family with me :-) I thought Amber would be a little afraid with all this crowd and loud noise, but she loved it!
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Friend's wedding
It's a well coordinated wedding. The groom sure did a lot of planning. Thumb's up to the groom! I haven't taken event photos for a while and this was a good opportunity for me. I wish the room had more space and light, and 70-200IS would certainly be nice. When would I have the money?
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Amber: five month
Amber is five month now, but still don't know how to roll over. Need to exercise more instead of being held all the time by grandma and grandpa. But she sure knows how to look adorable :-)
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Orlando trip
It's going to be sunny all weekend according to the weather report. So, I took my parents to Orlando. I should have booked the hotel before the trip. Almost all hotels along US129 had no vacancy when we arrived in the evening. Already busy season now?
This is the first time dad and mom got a tour outside Atlanta. They were pretty excited about Disney and Sea World, whereas I was very much bored. Disney is ok. Although this was the forth time, at least your eyes were kept busy with all the people there. We spotted a line of kids in Amber's age napping under the mid afternoon sun.
Sea World, in my opinion, is going to the worse side. The scripts for the shows were pretty much the same as what I saw six years ago. The newly added shows were dogs, birds, and aerobatics shows, which I don't think have anything to do with "Sea" world. Lack of interactions between the audience is another problem.
But, anyway, dad and mom were quite happy to get away from our little prison-like apartment, though they found the price of the tickets to be somewhat expensive. Mom commented on the availability of wheelchair. She was really impressed by the accesssibility for the elderly and people with disabilities. Yes, there is still much to learn about how to build parks that are family friendly and enjoyable by three generations together.
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Lunar new year
The year of the dog is already here.
It has been a while since I last took pictures of Amber. Mommy and grandma, grandpa are so demanding! Amber really grows fast. I tried collage again.
