I saw the first ever posting of the E-5 on Ebay today! Sent an email to the seller asking if he can upgrade the shipping to one/two day expedited just so I can get the camera in time for Africa. Very scared now that someone will buy it before the seller responses….

I cancelled my order for the E-5 on Vistek.ca as they couldn’t give me an exact date that they’re going to receive the camera. The web sales girl was the lamest person I ever talked to - she sounded totally uncare, with a really dead voice. I totally don’t want to deal with them anymore. Glad that I cancelled it.

Went with Wendy to the Skagit County near Burlington to see the tulip fields. We left around 7AM but then I forgot to bring some stuff for a few times and therefore had to drove back home to pick them up and wasted some 45 minutes. The drive down the States wasn’t too bad, around 1.5 hours excluding the line up at the border.

I think it was the last day to show the tulip fields before they “top them off”, which is to chop off the petals / head of the flower in order to prevent disease…etc. The remaining fields were still vast and colorful - red, orange, yellow, purple, white, pink…. so many colors. Wendy had a chance to try out her new Olympus E-PL1 camera, and I busted out my Zuiko 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 for some serious bokeh fun. This lens was extremely capable in the fields, more useful than my beloved Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-3.5.

We went to the Burlington Outlet for some shopping but then the place was kind of tiny, nothing much there so we just wandered for a bit and drove back to Canada. We walked SO much and were super tired. Wendy got some sunburn on her nose and face hopefully it’ll heal fairly soon.

Just got home from the JiuZhaiGou 6-day trip, in Hong Kong now. The trip was pretty nice, saw some crazy views from top of Mt. Emei, some really clear water at JiuZhaiGou, and checked out some shows during the nights with quite a few really talented performers. I got sick 4 days into the trip since it was super cold, I think I caught a cold on day 1 but it didn’t develop until day 4. Luckily, thanks to this cold meds I bought at the JiuZhaiGou airport, the cold magically disappeared.

Bought two really good books from the airports in China. Books were really cheap, like $2-3 Canadian could get you a full colored, 300 pages book, couldn’t resist not to get some. One of them is kinda like world geography, talks about all the cities and countries around the world, with their flags and info and stuff. The other one shows the prettiest places around the world.

Some shit happened during the trip though. I lost the eye cup for my Olympus camera, and the lens cover for my 12-60mm lens. Not really sure where I lost them, probably due to the fact that it was so crowded in China and somehow these parts came loose when people around bumped into me. I was able to buy a new eye cup at the Olympus service centre in MongKok (Hong Kong) for $190HKD, and a no-brand 72mm lens cover for $30HKD. Sucks.

Today I came across some stores that sell kitchen/bathroom hardware, so I checked out some nice faucets and ended up getting this really nice one, for $1888HKD. I already got one from Ikea but it was kinda too short, I’ll return it and install this new one when I get home.

Went to Stanley Park for biking yesterday with Wendy. We rented a “tendam”, a bike that sits two people. We were skeptical at first but it turned out to be really easy to ride and lots of fun! We spent a good four hours at the park, biking and stopping for pictures…etc. I brought my two SLRs that I just got for test shots. They are actually quite easy and fun to use, as I enjoy manual focusing a lot. I was using the Olympus OM-1n camera and Wendy got the OM-10. I was fully prepared for the worst, that the pictures would turn out real bad as I had never used SLRs before, plus these are 30-year old cameras… It turned out that the OM-1n was perfect, photos turned out to be very sharp, though overexposed a bit probably due to the fact that the 1.5V battery installed had a higher voltage than the recommended 1.35V and therefore the light meter was a little off, well at least I know how to calibrate it for next time. On the other hand, shots taken by the OM-10 were ALL blurred Not 100% sure why but I think it’s because of the focus screen not held level inside the camera - I was playing with it the other day, maybe it was loosen after that. I’ve calibrated it a bit hopefully it’ll turn out good for the next time.

All in all, it was a great day for bike, and a great experience to use the SLRs! It was just a perfect day.

I’ve been deciding whether to get this EC-20 2x Teleconverter, or the Sigma 50-500mm (so-called “Bigma” since it’s got this huge zoom range), for my long range needs. The Sigma is heavy, plus there’s not weather sealing (unlike the EC-20), so I’m leaning towards the EC-20. It’ll turn my Zuiko 50-200mm into 100-400mm, pretty rad. I’m talking about all these since I saw a deal on Ebay today, $379 “factory demo” (brand new price would be something around $450). I think the demos are okay, as long as the glass isn’t scratched. I’ve sent an email to the seller asking about the condition of the item, see if he’ll respond.

Also trying to set up this old old Athlon machine that used to sit in Wendy’s car’s trunk….used to be her “carputer”. I took it out of the car since it’s getting old and slow. I was trying to set it up so that my mom can use it when she comes in June, but I failed. Somehow the Linksys Wireless G USB adapter wasn’t able to detect the wireless signal from my new router (too good?). I gave up. I’ll just let her use my Fujitsu laptop….. Now I’m not sure what to do with this old AMD machine…

Today’s the first day..of 2009. Time passes way quicker than I thought…guess I should think positively though on the first day of the year. Anyway, last night I didn’t go countdown or anything related but instead I went for snowboarding again (on Cypress)…lol, with Davinder. We went for the “Night Owl” time frame again and since I bought a “Ski Pass” last time I went up I paid $30 instead of the regular $38 It was snowing very hard, and the visibility was marginal but the snow condition was AWESOME. I tended to stop more frequently on the runs just to sit down and enjoy the powdery, soft snow. Even though I didn’t do a lot of runs (did 14 last time) I enjoyed it a lot not only for the soft snow but I also got to try one or two of the blue runs (intermediate level) that I’ve never done before. They were full of bumps and stuff which caused me to fall down for quite a bit but it was fun and tiring. I picked up some new skills like braking when going down fairly fast and making narrower turns. Overall it was a pretty worthwhile trip.

I hate my fucking BlackBerry cellphone, it kept on dying. I put it in my pocket when I snowboard and maybe some moisture or something got into it, some keys stopped responding. I had to open up the casing, had it in front of my heater fan for like 30 minutes, and it started working again. This is probably my 4th BlackBerry phone and yes, it died 3 times for the exact same reason. This thing sucks (as a comparison I put my Canon SD1000 digital camera into my other pocket and it DIDN’T die)

Today I sold my Olympus E-520 DSLR and also the Zuiko 14-54mm lens that I got free with my Olympus E-3 purchase, for $750 (I love Craigslist) I could have sold it for maybe $50-$100 more but oh well, guess it’s still good. The transaction went pretty smooth and the lady actually owns a E-500 looking to upgrade to the E-520, so while she was testing out the cam, her husband and I started a conversation over diesel cars since he also drives a diesel car (one of those old Mercedes Benz). Now I got some cash to pay for my $5xxx VISA bill for the month….