The Wifey's Birthday Dinner at Pollen

Last month was my lovely wife's birthday, I arranged a surprise dinner for her at Pollen in Gardens by The Bay.  The restaurant specializes in modern European cuisine.

Inside Pollen - we were quite early

Bye Bye X-T1

After 18 months with the X-T1 I finally bid farewell to that awesome camera.  It's kind of bittersweet.  While I love the camera, I'm quite frustrated with the AF capability in terms of DOF accuracy - my old D5300 was considerably better despite the cost at less than half of X-T1's price.  But it's the final photo quality from the X-T1 that made it my favourite.

I sold the body and kit lens together, preparing for X-T2 to arrive in September.

I'm really amazed at how popular Fujifilm is right now, it only took me 2 days to clear the kit after I posted my advertisement.  The price at which I cleared them is quite reasonable as well.

As for X-T2, the paper specs have been promising on the AF department - from 77 points in X-T1 to 325 in X-T2.  Just as how increase of AF points made magic in 5D Mk 3 as compared to 5D Mk 2, I hope for the same on X-T2.

Adieu X-T1.......  

Farewell to X-T1

~ Photo taken with Sony RX100 Mk 3 ~

Kidzania Trip - July 2016

Last Friday we went to Kidzania in Sentosa.  On my wife's suggestion, I had promised Lincoln to bring him to Kidzania as his birthday present.  And I think it was a very good suggestion indeed as the kids certainly had a good time.

From the start both Lincoln and Lindsay were already very excited and couldn't wait to start.

Outside Kidzania

Linc's 6th Birthday 2016

Today is Lincoln's birthday.  I took half day off in the afternoon to pick up his birthday cake and prepare for a celebration at his school with his classmates.  The boy turned 6 today.  It's quite hard to see how he grows up so fast, I feel like I hadn't spent enough time with him.

Anyway.....  My wife ordered a separate cake for his birthday celebration at school.  It's a Doraemon themed cake which looks really cute.

Lincoln's Cake for Celebration at School

A Different Kind of DIY - Orient Stingray EM7J001B

Still on DIY, I have a handsome watch by Orient - Stingray EM7J001B.  Doesn't cost a bomb but way cool and stylish.  The problem is, the calf leather strap cannot stand the humidity and have really degraded over time.

I decided to use the Hirsch strap I got for my Seiko Baby Tuna SRP655K1.  The original Seiko rubber strap has a lug size of 22 mm but the actual width after the spring bar slot is actually 24 mm.  While the strap looks good, it does come across a bit small for a 50 mm watch.  I thought it will make a good replacement to my EM7J001B.  The very funny fact is that..... the strap's price is $40 more expensive than the watch itself - it's a leather & rubber hybrid from Hirsch's performance straps series.

The Watch with the New Strap

Acer Aspire One D255 Major Upgrade

So after I upgraded my VAIO's HDD to an SSD,  I've been very impressed with the performance - zippy performance all over and extremely fast start-ups.

I have a 6 year old Acer Aspire One Netbook lying around which I've lent my sister but then she abandoned it.  Can't blame her because it is so slow and quite painful to use.  So I decided to have a go at upgrading this netbook too in the hopes of making it still usable.

The first task is to upgrade the OS from Windows 7 Starter to Windows 10.  The start up was slightly faster.  The good thing about Windows 10 is that it somehow improves performance of devices with inferior hardware but only up to a certain degree.

After OS upgrade, I got the SSD first - a Samsung Evo 850 which comes with a migration software, unfortunately I had to get the SATA adapter myself.  Since I couldn't get that frigging adapter in my local IT shop I had to wait 4 days to buy it online from Qoo 10.

Brand New 250GB SSD to Replace The Old HDD