Stormtroopers surveying the terrain in an Imperial Dropship.

From Cha-plang photos

Shadow stormtrooper pilot: No rebels in sight. Ok, let’s report back to headquarters.

From Cha-plang photos

From Cha-plang photos

Shadow stormtrooper pilot: What?? No mail for me!!

From Cha-plang photos

Stormtrooper #1: Did you watch the Phillies game? That was AWESOME!!

Stormtrooper #2: What Phillies game?

Stormtrooper #1: You’re hopeless! Where’s #3 by the way?

Stormtrooper #2: He’s downstairs sending a report to Death Star command.

From Cha-plang photos

Stormtrooper #3: ZZZZZZzzzzzzz

Last year, I was rather upset when I was “demoted” to an office space that didn’t have a computer or drawers.

From Cha-plang photos

This summer, when I found out that some students were moving out of the office and some desk space have become available, I quickly reserved my own desk space. It doesn’t have a computer but at least there are some drawers.

From Cha-plang photos

I was out on a run when I spotted these mushrooms. Not sure if they are edible though..

From Cha-plang photos

From Cha-plang photos

John McCain and Sarah Palin were at Lehigh’s Stabler Arena. The free tickets to the event were sold out before I even found out where to get them. Anyway, since they were in the area, I brought along my flip video with me just in case I happened to bump into them. Slim chance….

I went to campus, got some blood work done at the health center (for a mandatory health test required by the department), had lunch, did some work and then took the 3:10pm shuttle bus to go home. And lo and behold, my trip home was interrupted by McCain’s Straight Talk Express entourage. I quickly flipped out my flip video and videotaped the above footage!

From VW Passat: My endless sorrow

The dreaded “SAFE” mode which plagued my car radio for over a year.

In order to reset the SAFE mode for another attempt to enter the radio code, I needed to switch on the radio for one hour. So I took a very long drive (52 minutes) to the Korean grocery store, sat in the idling car for another 8 minutes, and tried the new found radio code and it worked.

From VW Passat: My endless sorrow

The revived non-SAFE radio!

And now, music (or noise) once again.

One year ago, my car radio went into SAFE mode (meaning it stopped working) due to battery problems. Initially driving without any music was almost intolerable and in order to get the radio to work again I had a list of things to do that I listed out in my post on September 16, 2007.

1. I need to locate the specific radio code to unlock the audio player anti-theft mechanism. I’ve looked through all the documents and manuals that the previous owner left me and no radio code. So tomorrow, I’ll have to check the trunk and look at the area around the spare tire for the 4-digit radio code. Why spare tire? Because in some of the online forums, some people found the codes there, supposedly left by the dealer.

I’ve searched everywhere, no code found.

2. If I don’t find the code anywhere, I will have to try to remove the player (following instructions that I found online), get the VW code on it somewhere, call a VW dealer and get the radio code from them. I’ve learned that some dealers will charge money just to provide the code, so I may have to call several dealership to find one that will do it for free.

I tried the credit card method but it didn’t work.

3. If I’m not able to remove the player on my own, I may have to bring it to a dealer and have them remove the player, get the VW number and then the radio code. They will probably charge me $90 for the labor, OR I could go to circuitcity and buy a new in-dash player for $99 and have them install it for free.

No. 3 seemed like a lot of work and money, and after a while I got used to driving without any music so I just let it go. No music…I can live with that.

But about 3 months ago, I decided to tackle the radio problem again. I asked Klein the mechanic to give it a go. He tried the standard “1111″ or “0000″ and it didn’t work. Then he tried to remove the radio but he didn’t have the right tool and couldn’t get the radio out. I think he was just not interested in spending his time on a radio of an old car. In the end, he told me to go to a VW dealer.

Undeterred, I went on ebay and searched and bought a set of radio removal tools. I made sure that I got the one that fits my car radio model.

From VW Passat: My endless sorrow

The “tool” arrived. I was in the midst of preparing for my trip back home, so I gave it a half-hearted try (with the flat part on the handle at the top) and the radio did not move. I put the process on hold until I came back from Malaysia.

Today, I decided to give it a try again. I tried the pushing the 2 removal tool keys (with the flat part on the handle at the bottom) into the 2 slots in the radio and pulled. The left side of the radio budged but the right side remained stuck. I kept pushing the right key harder but the right side won’t move. I decided to turn the right key around (with the flat part at the top) and …. VOILA!! the radio slid out without much effort.

From VW Passat: My endless sorrow

From VW Passat: My endless sorrow

And to my wonder, the radio code is written on top of the radio (I blurred the code for security reasons), so I didn’t even need to call a VW dealer to get the radio code.

From VW Passat: My endless sorrow

I immediately pulled out the sound system manual so I could enter the radio code and unlock the radio. But the SAFE mode remained. I remembered that Klein the mechanic did try the “standard” codes before and according to the manual, if the radio code has been entered incorrectly twice, the radio must be left on for a whole hour before entering the radio code again.

It was getting late, so I decided to wait till tomorrow to continue on with the radio unlocking process. Hopefully, by tomorrow evening, I’ll hear music in my car again.

It was the Campus Philly day last Saturday in Philadelphia. On that day, students get to visit local museums for free. I went to the Rodin Museum, the Franklin, and finally the Academy of Natural Sciences (ANSP).

And of all the museums, I had the silliest time with my two South American friends, Marcie and Nadia, at the green screen video room at the ANSP.

By the way, I added all the sound effects. On the original video, I could only hear Nadia laughing the whole time.

I’m back in the US after a 3-week vacation in Malaysia. One of my luggage bags didn’t make it on the same plane and had to travel to the US via Amsterdam. Two days later, my left behind suitcase finally arrived at my door around midnight yesterday.

Surveying the contents, I immediately saw a piece of yellow paper informing me that my two packages of dried sliced ham (bak kua) has been confiscated. Bummer

A thorough check led to the sacrificial mooncake-prodded and poked by the officers of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As I had specifically bought only mooncakes with no salted egg yolks, I’m glad the officers checked first and did not blindly confiscate all of them. Because of one mooncake’s sacrifice, the other 12 mooncakes survived the journey intact.

From Cha-plang photos

From Cha-plang photos

At least the mooncake was smashed while still in the plastic wrapper, so it is still edible.

I thought I’ve given up on running since my right knee hurts when I ran. But after talking to another runner friend, I realized that my running shoes may be expiring thus causing all the problems. So I got a new pair of running shoes and tried to run again and so far so good. Surprisingly, after 2 months of spinning classes, my heart and lungs are coping slightly better when I run.

Nowadays, when I go out for a walk/run, besides my nike+ipod, I’ll also put on my Timex heart rate monitor (HRM). So many gadgets for such slow running but I really do like the numbers and stats. Here is a summary from both gadgets for today’s run:

Nike+ipod
Time: 1:17′ 46″
Distance: 8.33 km
Average pace: 9’19″/km
Calories: 557

Timex HRM
Time: 1:20′ 54″
Average heart rate: 151
Peak HR: 184 (too high: a clear indicator that running is still not easy for me)
Minimum HR: 86
Calories: 1088

The calorie count on the Timex HRM is definitely off. The nike+ipod calorie counter is more accurate. I wish the HRM calorie count was accurate though. 1088 calories is about equal to the BK Whopper plus medium French fries that I had for lunch 2 days ago

I found another feather today. To make my runs less boring, I scan the grounds for feathers and golf balls. Five feathers and four golf balls so far.

Musikfest is here again. This time I went to the LIVE and Collective Soul concert. I bought the cheapest lawn tickets and got Marcie to come with me. Borrowed 2 collapsible lawn chairs from another friend and off to the concert we went. The weather forecast was troubling. The sky looked pretty scary when we reached the concert area.

Found a nice spot and set up our lawn chairs and waited for the concert to start. Then we saw a lady walking around the lawn area asking if people would like a free upgrade to the seated area (courtesy of Joe Straub, one of the big sponsors of Musikfest). Nearer to the stage? Definitely! We quickly packed up the chairs and moved to the seated area.

But the sky still looked rather bad..

8pm, the concert started, I looked around and saw all the empty seats behind us. I guess the two bands are not as popular now.

Collective Soul started the show. The lead singer with long blonde hair was very entertaining with his headbanging and hair flinging acts I knew that my camera was really low on battery power, so I limited the length of the video clips that I took.

After about an hour of Collective Soul, there was a 20 minute break for LIVE to set up.

LIVE was definitely much louder. They did a nice version of Johnny Cash’s I Walk The Line.

Here is a full video of them doing Heaven.

And at last, their megahit Lightning Crashes. And the low battery icon started blinking, so the video is incomplete.

Overall, I liked Collective Soul better but LIVE had several really good songs. Considering I didn’t know them when they were really popular back in the 1990s, it was a really good show. Their songs are those really good ones that you hear but never know who sang them. It’s funny how each time a song started, both Marcie and I had the same look, the “wrecking our brains trying to figure out if we recognize the song” look. Most of the time, I didn’t know the songs, even though, I had been catching up on some of their more popular tunes on youtube the past 2 weeks.

Finally at 11pm the show ended. We carried our lawn chairs and took a long walk back to the parking lot. Even with the scary looking sky, the weather turned out to be really great for an outdoor concert. It was nice and cool. I may possibly go for another concert before Musikfest ends. This time it would be to see Over The Rhine. By the way, even Lonestar, famous for the song Amazed (the super sappy wedding song), will be playing at Musikfest this year.