The Bell Family

Some of the girls memorable quotes from the last few weeks…

Laura:
* “Looking…. is like sniffing with your eyes!”
* “Can I use the dumb-puter” (aka computer)?
* “You look pretty Mum”, generally followed by “can I have something”?
* “Holy heck… Katie can reach the door! Just a minute you little polka dot!”

Katie:
* Anytime we mention the beach, Katie says “Oh, oh, oh!!! Swimming and sandcastles! Mmmm, chippies and gravy”!
* Donning her cute pink sunnies, Katie loves to say “cool dude Katie”!
* Anytime Jason says, “you’re kidding…”, Katie responds “no… you’re kidding ME!!!”

Then finally…
“Mum… Dad look….. we made Roxy into a fairy, just like us!!!”

Say no more… Cute as…

C.

Just a few quick piccies from the weekend…

Mmm… chocolate! Cheeky monkeys cooking up a storm

See how our garden grows!!!

We have started picking our first coriander and lettuce leaves… Carrot tops, along with celery and spring onions are all shooting madly and the corn is going strong. All of the tomato plants are in flower and our first little tomatoes are just beginning to form… the girls are so excited and can’t wait to sample them!

Laura couldn’t resist another photo opportunity… she’s such a little performer! Katie was too busy jumping on the trampoline to stop for a photo!

Have a good one,
Chrissy

I’ve just returned from my third visit to Singapore… another work trip of course, however I did manage to get in some sight seeing this time!!! The conference went well and I even managed a visit to one of the air bases and had a ride in a very high tech flight simulator… very cool.

Well, here’s a few piccies from the trip…

…My Hotel

… Chinatown Food Street

… Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo (fabulous)

…Cable Car to Sentosa Island

…Sentosa Island – Contrast between natural areas, port and city high rise

… Chrissy and in the background, the Merlion (mythical creature, half lion, half fish)

… Giant Snail!!!

… Sentosa Island Mosaic Tiled Fountains

…Sentosa Fountains

... Fort Silosa Surrender Table (Singapore was under British rule until 1942 when they surrendered to the Japanese. After a number of harsh years and POW camps, the Japanese surrendered to the British in 1945, however Singapore's national spirit had already been sparked and it became its own nation in 1967)

… The Merlion

… Snake Charmer

… Sentosa – Mass Development Site for the Future Casino

… Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (train station)

… Singapore’s other national emblem, the Orchid

Hope you liked the piccies.

Cheers,
Christine

For those who know nothing about WWDC, it is the yearly developer’s conference for Apple computer hardware. The keynote presentation, given by Steve Job,s CEO of apple, is usually very entertaining and quite crowded. I would estimate that there would have been almost 5000 people at the keynote presentation. During the keynote, information on apple’s new operating system, hardware releases and general Apple background info was given. For those who are interested, you can view the presentation stream by visiting (http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/aug_2006/event/index.html). I should warn you that it goes for an hour and a half and requires a bit to download. Though, if you have an interest in computers and have at least a broadband connection, I would recommend watching it.

I have attached another photo to give you an idea what the keynote presentation is like.

To be honest, the keynote has a bit of a concert sort of feel to it.

After the keynote, I had some lunch and attended some of the other presentations. Due to confidentiality, I cannot divulge much, other than that apple is producing some really cool stuff and makes me want to get one 

Due to getting a very poor sleep again, I was happy to leave the conference around 5 and get back to my room. Not much else exciting happen, other than I caught up on some email and work.

After waking up early, I ended up watching a movie on the TV here. I had some breakfast and with a couple of my colleagues, we headed out to the downtown bay area to do some more site-seeing and browsing through the shops.

First stop was to head to the Moscone centre to register for the conference. This saved us from having to do it on the Monday, which saved us a lot of time.

We grabbed something to eat for lunch and headed back to our rooms for a break. Over the past few days, I would have walked more than in the previous month and my feet were telling me so. After giving my feet some rest, I headed out with a mate towards the water again to take some photo’s and check out the place in the daytime.

Above is a picture of me with the Bay Bridge in the background.

Also, here is another picture with cupid’s bow and arrow in the back ground. I think because San Francisco is the city of love, or something like that, it is reason for its significance.

Again, it was quite a walk back to our rooms and by the time we got back it was time to attend the AUC pre-wwdc gathering in which people from Australia and New Zealand was in attendance. With nibbles and free drinks provided, it was good to meet similar people attending the conference and network with them. I also caught up with an old work colleague who has moved on. It’s a small world isn’t it?

After a few drinks, the gathering was finishing up and some of us headed to the motel’s bar for some more food and drinks. I ended up meeting a number of new people and a good night was had.

Saturday (4th of August US Time)

Once I arrived in San Francisco, which was around 5pm, got to our motel, had some dinner and quickly visited a couple of stores. It’s weird, but it doesn’t really get dark here until around 9pm. Also a lot of the shops and stuff are still open till around then.

My first initial impression of the motel is that it a significantly better than the place I stayed at last time… The location is a lot better and I feel quite safe and comfortable to walk around the place.

We only had a quick look around, and given that we were quite tired, wanted to get back and hit the sack early.

I found that I got to sleep quite reasonable well, but woke up a couple of times and around 5am woke up staving and had to grab something to eat. Unfortunately I couldn’t get back to sleep and just watched some TV and stuff.

Saturday (5th of August)

Saturday we spent looking around San Francisco. We visited the Virgin Mega Store which is pretty cool and not only contains music, but DVD’s, books and other Virgin items. We also visited the Apple store ( http://www.apple.com/retail/sanfrancisco/) which is pretty cool. Had a look at the various equipment and checked out the Mac mini’s ( http://www.apple.com/macmini/) .

We also checked out the Comp USA store, which is like a huge computer store in which we nicknamed it the Bunnings computer store 

We checked out a fair few other shops. Some of the initial things that I noticed was that the computer equipments wasn’t that cheap in which I could purchase similar things in Australia as cheap, or in most cases, even cheaper. Food over here is also a lot more expensive and the only thing that appeared cheaper, was clothes.

After walking around a fair bit, I headed back to the room to take it easy.

When I got back, I did some research in finding a casino and to my amazement, they don’t have any casinos in San Francisco, or even in the state of California. Since there were no casinos, A colleague from where I work and I headed out towards the water for dinner. It was around 8pm and we were surprised how many places were shutting up and no longer serving. I think we would have walked well over 5 kay’s and along the piers until we found somewhere to eat. The place we ended eating at, remaindered me of a place from the movies. All we were chasing was some basic fish and chips. We ended up having fish and chips, but it was an interestingly chilli batter and was something completely different. After a long walk back, I crashed out quite quickly.

Well some of you might be aware that I am currently in the U.S. for WWDC (http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/index.html?homepage). So I thought I would write a couple of posts to the blog on my travels and happenings.

I’m currently sitting in Los Angeles (LA) International Airport waiting for my flight to San Francisco. Like all of my other international flights, this one had a little bit of drama. There was stormy weather on departure from Sydney Airport, so that delayed us around two and a half hours. This of course meant that we would miss our connecting flight to San Francisco.

As a result, my travelling colleague Dave and I had a little trouble getting through Customs and getting a rescheduled flight.

The international flight was pretty good but I would have liked to get more than 2 hours sleep (I find it extremely difficult to sleep on planes). Not much else exciting to comment on with the trip so far… plane food is still like plain food, thirteen and a half hours is a long time to spend sitting down in one spot and jet lag sucks!!!! But other than that, I’m in good spirits and looking forward to some exploring in San Francisco and then onto the Conference.

I plan on updating the blog very frequently whilst in the US, so watch this space!!!!

Until next time.

Take it easy,
Jason.