A touching animated vid by Hanna Abi-Hanna.
Beneath the Rubber Tree from Hanna on Vimeo.
I love the idea of Time Vault Letters i.e. you write a letter or record a DVD to someone or yourself, post date it, after which the company will mail it on the specific date. They will store it in their fire/ waterproof vault up to 5 years from the day you post date it.
There is a lot you can write on in a vault letter … e.g. a momentous event in your life, a life changing event, personal or business goals, leaving your legacy or a love letter to that someone special.
The idea came from the creator’s weekend at a community church:
My first year of college I attended a search weekend hosted by a community church located close to the University of Montana. We were locked up within the church, disconnecting from the outside world. The weekend was an opportunity to spend time journaling and sharing with others the things that were happening in our lives. On the last day we each spent time writing a personal letter to ourselves about how we felt, and what our plans, dreams, and hopes were for the year to come. I placed my letter into an envelope and addressed it to myself.
The minister of the church was to then send the letters back to us in order for each of us to evaluate whether or not our year progressed the way we envisioned. What a surprise it was to receive this letter a year later. My perception of myself had changed, and so had my thinking. The issues I was dealing with at the time did not seem so distressful, and I understood I had the ability to conquer some obstacles in my life. I realized how much a person may change in just a years time.
The service does costs you $10 for a letter and $15 for a DVD. That buys you the safeguarding of the letter and timely mailing of it. Not bad for something that you can cherish. Post dating it as far into the future as you can makes it more priceless for that someone special receiving it. Reminds me of time capsules but with a shorter lifespan.
I might actually buy a letter, write to J and post date it 5 years from now. It’ll be great to see how I’ve progressed, how technology has changed and where we are in that time. Stay tuned, I’ll write about it in 5 years if The Foo Logs is still around.
Couldn’t help but buy a miniature version of Charlie Brown’s pathetic Christmas tree from A Charlie Brown Christmas.
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
- Helen Keller
I haven’t done a meme before and decided to do one after being tagged by Dizzy Dee.
Rules
Each player lists 8 random facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
So here goes …
My 8 random facts (in no particular order):
1. I love Nutella (addicted more like it)
2. Can’t get enough of Starbucks
3. High school classmate is currently a famous fashion designer, glamor model, actress and she’s dating one of the top guys in Hollywood
4. Wish I owned a H2 Hummer
5. When I was younger, I wanted to be a professional tennis player
6. Love to be a Seux chef
7. Would love to work for Disney as an Imagineer
8. Hate people who think they are better than you and always know more than you (i.e. a Mr. Know-It-All)
Tagged
A Planet Named Janet
Hello! Yoshi
The Island Life
Theory Of Thought
This and That
Blog like you mean it
Peaceful Catastrophe
Culture Kills … wait I mean Cutlery
Happy Birthday!…
Eid milaad saeed! (Arabic)
qu ni sheng er kuai le (Mandarin)
Sun Yat Fai Lok! (Cantonese)
Tillykke med fodselsdagen! (Danish)
Hartelijk gefeliciteerd! (Dutch)
Joyeux Anniversaire! (French)
Alles Gute zum Geburtstag! (German)
Chronia Pola! (Greek)
Hau`oli la hanau! (Hawaiian)
Yom Huledet Same’ach! (Hebrew)
Selamat Hari Jadi (Malaysian)
Buon Compleanno! (Italian)
Saeng il chuk ha ham ni da! (Korean)
Feliz Aniversario! (Portuguese)
Feliz Cumplea–os! (Spanish)
Suk San Wan Keut! (Thai)
Penblwydd Hapus i Chi! (Welsh)
Chuc Mung Sinh Nhat! (Vietnamese)
Otanjou-bi Omedetou Gozaimasu! (Japanese)
Janam Din ki badhai! (Hindi - Indian)
Another year (nearly) bites the dust and yet another birthday comes around. Happy Birthday to me… 33 years of age and starting to feel old. Body certainly acts that way — aches and pains just don’t go away.
Happy Birthday to everyone celebrating their birthdays today too. Hope your day is a great one with lots of love, excitement and surprises.
Thanksgiving is rapidly closing in and I would like to wish everyone a Happy Turkey day.
As a national day symbolizing the Pilgrim celebration of harvest, food and feasting, let us remember that it is also a time for thanks and praise to God for the food that he has given us.
Also hoping that the Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, ham, mash potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pecan pie and all the other good food that comes with it doesn’t give you too much of a belly ache (from eating too much).
And Black Friday… who can forget the one (of the two days) in the year where people actually camp outside stores to get the best deals of the year. Tempting as it is with the deals at Best Buy or Circuit City, it is just too cold to stand outside at 4am in the morning — so you won’t find me doing that anytime soon. For those of you who might consider braving the cold, here is a good site to read about the fantastic deals from the major outlets.
I have also decided to take the rest of the month off (and maybe a little more) to finish off work priorities, deadlines and spend time with J and her relatives too. Unfortunately, I have not been able to juggle work and blogging this past month with everything that is going on around this holiday season.
If anyone would like to guest blog on The Foo Logs during that time, please feel free to contact me. Have a wonderful time with your family and look forward to blogging again soon.
Miles has a new (bad) habit. In the past week, he has been putting his paws in his water bowl and overturning it. We’ve been moping the floor multiple times a day and it’s starting to get really old. Not sure where he learnt this from or why the sudden change in behavior after 3 years. This needs to stop!
Tried different things in the past week — sprayed him with water everytime he did it, did a little slap on his paws to makes sure he knows not to do it, bought a heavier/ wider porcelain bowl (thinking it might be his reflection that’s bothering him), bought a water fountain/ dispenser and used bottled water instead of tap water … none of which worked.
Can someone give us some advice and help on this? We’ll be interested to know if your cat did it, and how you stopped this behavior. We can’t keep mopping the floor 5-6 times a day and can’t stop giving him water either. I really hope this is just a temporary behavioral phase.
What happens if you have only a certain amount of time to live? Would you want to take a trip of a lifetime or just sit at home counting down the days?
For me, I would want to experience some exciting adventures and do some things that I’ll never forget. Here is my top 10 list (in no particular order):
Freefall and dive like there’s no tomorrow! A helicopter will fly to the top of Mt. Everest (29035 ft above the ground), where you will freefall past some of the world’s highest mountains and land on the highest drop zone in the world. You will then experience the Himalayan environment, visit the Kathmandu and Serpa lands on the Everest region.
Train on sophisticated simulators used on astronauts and fighter pilots, test your reaction to space flights zero gravity and more. It’s a two day intense training course by the National Aerospace Training & Research (NASTAR) Center in Pennsylvania. Those who experienced it called it “Disney’s Mission Space on steroids”.
3) Experience an Air Combat duel
Be a fighter pilot for a day, engage in aerial dogfighting with choice of 4 aircrafts including a world war II fighter plane. Maneuver the plane acrobatically and dog fight like the movies. You will get to fire with electronic bullets, so you can’t run out of it. Each plane is equipped with laser weapon systems, smoke and sound effects for realistic experiences.
4) Star in a personal Top Gun gun style documentary
Fly the L-39 jet fighter and play the role of the fighter pilot. Work with the same people and the same plane that was used in the movie Jarhead. Coordinate and create your own action/ flying sequence. While you are in the plane flying, everything will be filmed and at the end of it, you get to keep your the personalized documentary film and movie footage.
5) Exploring the Grand Canyon on a raft
A 14 day expedition down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon that includes hiking and rafting experiencing the history, archeology, ecology and geology of the Canyon. Imagine rafting down a canyon that is 6000 feet deep, 277 miles long and 18 miles wide (at its widest). This is a trip like no other.
6) Explore Europe, Africa and the Carribean on the Picton-Castle
The Picton-Castle is a sailing ship reminiscent of what commercial sailing ships were a 100 years ago. With 12,450 feet of canvas sails, an 1893 cooking stove, a galley on deck, two tiers with bunks, steel hull, mast and pine decks; you get to experience traveling the world like Christopher Columbus did. While on it, you will be a ship trainee seaman, learning navigation and square rigging.
7) Trekking in the Tibetan valleys seeing the last Shangri-La
Experience a 3 week hike up the eastern valleys of Merak and Sakten and tour the ancient monasteries. You will trek across 13,500 feet of the mountain, exploring ancient traditional villages and finally visiting with monks who follow the Nyingma sec of Tibetan Buddhism.
8) Bungee jump off the highest dam in the world
Bungee jump 722 feet off the Verzasca dam in Ticino, Switzerland. It takes about 7.5 to 8 seconds to reach the lowest point of the jump. Verzasca dam is the same dam James Bond jumped off in GoldenEye.
5 days reliving the adventures of the Wild West in South Dakota; getting up close and personal with a roaming buffalo herd, riding with the cowboys, bouncing along the prairie through the mountains on authentic wagon ride, horse through the back country and joining the native Americans in a traditional Indian pow wow.
10) Drive off-road down the Baja Peninsula
The ultimate in off-road adventure… one will drive an off-road car/ truck from the international border at Tijuana, along the Baja coast through Punta San Francisquito and finally to ending at Cabo San Lucas. Through the 7 day off-road journey, you will experience the variety of vegetation, wilderness, geographical terrain, beautiful valleys, and enjoy the Pacific coastline.
So what will your top 10 list be like?
A little late in the game but I joined Facebook last week. I wanted to see what the buzz was all about… now I wish I had joined it sooner!
Was just amazed to find so many of my childhood and high school friends. In less than a week, I’ve found 20 friends that I’ve lost contact with during the years.
Words can’t even start to describe how I felt when I found a childhood (best) friend from more than 20 years ago. I may have to put that on my list of the top 5 most exciting moments in my life. Rekindling childhood memories and good times like that is priceless. It’s also pretty surreal to see how they’ve all grown up as my only memory of them and how they looked like was when they were teenagers.
With it’s integrated apps and a huge database of people, I see some using it more for business purposes too. For now, I am just content with using it to find my long lost friends and may probably keep it that way. This is because I would rather not have my business contacts dive into my personal life and personal details; there really needs to be a separation there. I also believe LinkedIn is better suited to business networking as it seems more formal.
To say that Facebook is a valuable networking tool is an understatement. I now see why it has a valuation of $15 billion.
