No Nose Smiley :)

I tried Sanebox and really liked it but today cancelled my account. I was only using it in my gmail which has a lot of crap emails which are almost spam-like (especially since I have a lot of people from overseas emailing me to be interested in their goods -- I mistakenly went to the Guangzhou Trade fair a few years back and handed out my business card!) Sanebox created a separate label for in gmail and filed lots of my newsletter type emails and junk mail into the box which was great. I then got a digest email at some point in the day (check your timezone settings as if you set it up right it will send it at the end of the day) which pointed me back to the sanebox. This then enables you to train your contacts so that the email gets treated in the correct manner. It did save me time and it did save me brain 'time', but I also missed a couple of emails which would have been better had I responded to in a more timely fashion. My email isn't that out of control so I'v...

I am frustrated with the poor quality reception from Optus 3G and even Telstra NextG wasn't cutting it on my current train line. I catch a train from Riverwood station to Wynyard and I may as well not be connected as the reception is that poor. It doesn't help that the tunnels have very poor reception as well. I need to be connected in order to do most of my laptop type work. For work purposes I need to be connected and even on my personal stuff I have my head in the clouds most of the time and need to be connected to update the bargainhunter.com.au blogs or visit elance.com to connect with some of the contractors. I use to have great use of my commute time when I was travelling by bus to work every day from Kellyville Ridge to the city. It helped that I was at the end of the line both ways (well one stop from each end!). So I ALWAYS got a seat and I had heaps of time to get work done. Too much time. 1.5 hours each way! I'm not complaining about my shorter commute...

A shameless plug for the website I have been wanting to launch for years now.  www.bargainhunter.com.au went quietly live in February.  I’m now looking for extra content for the site from bloggers and people who are willing to write full articles. I’ve had some interesting feedback about the site from the beta testers (thanks to all of those who did some testing and provided feedback!).  One thing I had forgotten is that I had already disassociated the ‘bargain’ part of the URL from my thinking.  There are so many deal sites out there that long ago I decided it was going to be re-shaped as a shopping hub of information about how to shop and where to shop for certain things rather than having just special deals.  Also the feeds from other sites which did log ‘bargains’ and deals were seen to be akin to advertising.  I plan to move those to somewhere more suitable.  Maybe a ‘deals’ page?  I also wanted to make use of the existing online catalog...

I’m continuing my eye exercises every second or third day so do it about 3 times a week – usually in the morning light.  I’m sure I would get better results during the middle of the day but I don’t have the right facilities to do it at lunch time. The results have been good and I’ve been slowly making improvements.  John has now got me some soft contact lenses –2.00 for both my right and left eyes.  These are meant to somehow ‘remind’ my eyes the shape they are meant to be in as well as offering some correction so that I can at least see things to some extent.  I’m still struggling in meeting rooms and either choose the seat closest to the screen or the furthest one so I can use my glasses.  (I put the glasses on top of the contacts).  John wasn’t too sure that was a good idea but since it works so well when I drive I have asked him to send me some less strong glasses, as the –2.75 lenses with the –2.00 contacts is really good for night time driving but r...

I received a nicely packaged set of new chart lenses from John yesterday. It was 'disguised' as an Xmas card :). Australia Post or Canada Post took their time as John told me he sent them on Dec 13th! John had organised for them to be tinted grey so I could tell the difference. These would now be my chart lenses which would help me with locking in the improvements and my night vision. So I tested my eyes on the chart and at a distance of 3 metres in good lighting the results were as follows: Naked eye Line 1 but blurry! With -2.75 glasses Line 6 but blurry. Strangely I can almost in my periphery see up to line 8 but it is very elusive. Even Line 6 is blurry but I can make out the letters which is what I use as my gauge. I then did the distance drill first with my left eye and then my right eye with the old lenses for 1.5 mins each eye. It is a lovely day outside although quite hot! I cracked open the new grey lenses for the chart drill and put both of these on and pro...

On Thursday 22nd December 2012 at lunch time, I wandered down to the Bank of China near Wynyard station (Sydney) and filled in my application form. The form was to apply for the bank account. The bank also took a copy of my passport and my HKID as well as a letter in the same name which had my home address. If you can read Chinese, here's a photo of a sign which was a the branch with some details: The bank branch was very quiet even at lunch time. There was one lady who was at the enquiry desk who helped me out. I took a seat and explained what I wanted to do and she just asked me if I had all my ID and documents with me. I had to write my Chinese name a couple of times which was a bit embarrassing as my handwriting looks like a 5 year old's! You know how some kids may write S or L or some other letter "backwards"... that's the type of handwriting I have! I had to silently giggle when the lady asked if I could "read Mandarin"! (Not Chinese but ...

I’ve recently learnt about Tabata and how this can help me optimise the time I spend on exercising. Reducing it down to less than 5 minutes a day! So of course I had to give it a go. I started this on 19th December 2011 so it’s still early days. Let’s see if this can replace the longer runs I would normally do with Sprocket. I decided to do this with my trusty exercise bike (seriously this has been probably the item which has been the best value in terms of exercise equipment – I bought it around 1995 for over $200 from Rebel Sport and I’m still using it regularly!). So I exercise in quick intervals of 20 seconds going as fast as I can and then 10 seconds of slower cycling. To make it easier I downloaded an Android App (Interval Timer AD) to help me identify the end of the 20 or 10-second ‘stints’. I wonder why the 20 seconds seems so long and the 10 seconds so short . I do this for 8 cycles and after I can feel it. I can feel the ‘Afterburn’ and my heart rate is accelera...