Our New Born

Our baby girl Rhee-Chen Liu (Rhee pronounced as "Ray") said hello to this world on 6:48pm Jan 28 Monday. She weighted 7lb 7oz, and was 22 inches long. The mom and the baby came home yesterday safe and sound. The little thing quickly adjusted to home, started to eat a lot, and sleep a lot.

A great night

I had several drinks with Sgt. Jarkman, a old folk from "A Gaming Bortherhood". Jarkman (David) is working with Ritz-Carlton in Tyson's corner. We never met, but we had a great time together, like we were a long time friend.

After we came out of the restaurant and said goodbye to each other, I came to my car at the top fo the parking lot. The winter is mild, but night's breeze is cool and refreshing. I looked out to the lights and noises of Tyson's corner-the lights of Ritz Carton hotel and Pricewaterhouse, and the lights of our firm Deloitte & Touche, which is shadowed by the PWC building now. The traffic and headlights of I-495 emitts a rythem like the one of an ocean, a heartbeat, a source of life. It's when I was looking at this ocean of lights and rythem, I remembered somethings that was deep in my memory, something that I had dreamed at very young. It was a picture can not be depicted by a still picture, or a plain song, or a cinametic piece. It's a world that your are a part of-not as an audience, but part of-and dreamed of. It's a picture of life, a picture of success, and picture of a human went through the labor and bitterness, and see through to the hope. It's the picture of tomorrow.

Star clouds from outer space?

No. It's the bubbles of boiling water. :)

My Patio Garden

My War against Squirrel!
Squirrels had devastated my little patio garden in the spring. They smelled out the fresh soil in my garden from half a mile away, and digged out most of my lily bulbs the next day I planted them. They found lily bulbs tasted like sh*t and then littered the broken bulbs all over the patio. I was outraged to see the aftermath and declared war against squirrels!

In the above pictures you see the anti-squirrel measures I took. First I installed a motion detector, then I spread tremedous amount of fox urine powders (the white stuff on the floor) on the pation and in the pots. That do not work! Urban squirrels never saw a fox, nor did they fear noises from the motion detector. Again don't waste money on those fox or wolf urine powders, the squirrels don't have "natural fear" of them. I then ordered a piece of barbed wires from California and tied them to the rail where squirrels came in. Is it working? I am afraid the effect is limited as squirrels are too tiny for anti-personnel barbed wires.

I had seriously considered electric fence, but I am living on the third floor of the apartment. When it's raining, there's a risk my neighbors downstairs got electrified!


The small plant in the middle has very special growing system. It thrusts bold branch up first, and leaves grow out of a tiny flower-bulb like thing at the elbow of the branch.


A tomato is turning color on my tomato plant. More baby fruits are growing.


The comparison shows the benefit of sun for full-sun type plants. I placed a penny to make the sizes comparable. The plant on the right actually started out early than the one on the left. However, the plant on the right was shadowed by low growing ivy and grew quite slow, and was soon passed by the plant on the left that enjoyed full sun.

Key West Trip

April 23, 2006, Sunday 6am
Dulles Airport, Northern Virginia

We rode the first morning flight out of Dulles Airport. When you go away traveling and break away from daily work routine, the first few hours are one of the most exciting experiences of the whole trip - the cool morning air, the dark but brightening sky, the orange lights and busy trolleys of the airport, and the anxiety of the plane plowing into the end of the runway (I believe humans are meant to stay on the earth otherwise they should be born with chicken wings)


After the plane reached almost 40,000 feet (13,000 m), we are allowed to use electronics so I fired up my camera. The sun rised in the mid air, and we start to see some fabulous clouds when we were over South Carolina. This photo is the cumulus-type clouds just 2,000 feet (700 m) above the sea level. The highlighted place was the ocean surface reflecting the morning sun. From where we were, the gap between the cloud and the sea surface seemed diminished and unremarkable.


This photo is the cumulonimbus-type clouds that accumulated to very high altitudes.

April 23, 2006, Sunday 2pm
Miami Beach, FL

Our detour to West Palm Beach wasn't impressive. The rich people's properties along the beach were nice, but hey we don't live there. Then we head back down south and stopped by Miami Beach. Miami Beach is so crowded that the sand is saturated with tourists' dried sweat. They were doing speedboat racing just 500 feet off the beach as you see in this picture. TV station's helicopters were chasing the loud boats with camcorders, and made the whole area even more boiling noisy. I was very happy when we got back in the car and moved south again.

April 24, 2006, Monday 6am
Hawk's Cay Resort, Marathon, FL

This is the resort call Hawk's Cay Resort ( http://www.hawkscay.com/) where we stayed. The location is in the middle of island chains; 2.5 hours from Miami, and 1.5 hours from Key West. In 1950's a Canadian mining millionare bought the duck key island, and built the resort on it which became the Hawk Cay Resort. The picture above is the sunrise at the Lagoon which is the natural sea water swimming pool.
Before we go, we had read on the web how expensive the resort's restaurants are. However, we found out the restaurants were not any expensive than other restaurants on the keys. On the contrary, the food quality at the resort restaurant was very impressive. The breakfast buffet is fresh and has a lot of assortment(love the oat meal, egg benedict, and on-demand omelet). And we eat quite often at the resort's italian and the carribean style restaurants too.


The Resort has a dolphin pool. You can play with the dolphins if you can dish out $400 for half an hour.

Me back from a Kayaking trip at the resort's marina.

April 24, 2006, Monday 12pm
Broadway Walk, Key West, FL

A tarpon fish at the harbor. When we were walking on Broadway Walk at Key West, we were surprised by number of giant fishes in the water just under the sidewalk. I estimated the fish's length is almost my height. They carelessly swam in and out of the shadows of the boats and the sidewalk. Later a bit internet research I found out Tarpon is one of the great saltwater game fish. In Florida, a special fishing permit is required to catch the fish and you can only keep one at a time.


Key West harbor. You can see a small fish in the close water. It wasn't swimming, maybe either drunk or got too much sun.

April 26, 2006, Wednesday 10am
Dry Tortugas National Park, Key West, FL

The skipper (aka the capitain) of the "Fast Cat"( http://www.sunnydayskeywest.com/fastcat.htm), the catamaran (the type of boat with twin floaters) that ferried us to Dry Tortugas National Park ( http://www.nps.gov/drto/). Dry Tortugas is a must-go place of Key West. It's located 70 miles west of Key West, so you can get there by either boats or seaplanes. It was an island discovered by Spanish about 500 years ago, and named after the huge number of sea turtles found around the island. Tortugas in spanish means "turtle". Before and during the Civil War in 1860's, American build Fort Jefferson on the island, and once had 3,000 soldiers stationed in this tiny place. The fortress was abandoned after the war, and eventually became a national park.


The sea plane at Dry Tortugas(http://www.seaplanesofkeywest.com/). The plane ticket costs about 50% more than the boat, but it worth it as you can save 2 hours in the trip, and see the ocean from above.


At the snorkeling area of Dry Tortugas National Park. The first natural white sand beaches I had been too. There are some white sand beaches on the keys, but they are all man-made with coral stones taken from some offshore coral islands, and are mostly rough and uncomfortable. Dry Tortugas white sand are corals that had been grinded and polished by the sea into powder. It felt so nice walking on it.


Emerald water seen from the top of the fortress. One of the scene I will never forget in my life.


Outlook from the Fort Jefferson


Snorkeling pictures! A Queen Angelfish at some pink corals.
I used a disposable underwater camera, so the picture quality was not so good. Yes I mean the real fish is 10 times prettier than what you see in the picture!


The Beauty and The Beast. The same Queen Angelfish with a puffer fish.


Some small coral fishes.


The water was super


A boat parked nearby the bird sanctuary


Fly fishes we spotted on the way back

April 26, 2006, Wednesday 6:30pm
Mallory Square, Key West, FL

Mallory Square of Key West is where people watch and celebrate the sunset. There are quite a number of chickens walked around the place, probably local restaurants' resource for fresh chicken soup?


Sunset at Mallory Square


A juggler among one of dozen other performers and several thousand of tourists.

April 27, 2006, Thursday 2pm
Vizcaya Garden Museum, Miami, FL

A Sentry statue. She looks great! :P


Vizcaya (http://www.vizcayamuseum.org/) was built by agricultural industrialist James Deering, who wintered on the property from 1916–1925. Today, the extraordinary European-inspired estate includes a Main House filled with art and furnishings, ten acres of gardens on Biscayne Bay.


At the water front of the museum


Outlooking the mason from the water front


The garden


A girl chatting with her photographer, one of the six groups that were taking artistic pictures in the garden during the hour. They were all soon-to-be-married hi-spanish girls. It seems they have the same custom as Chinese that the bride capture the last halo of her single life before she takes someone's hand and heads into the kitchen. :P The picture below is another group.

April 2006-Cherry Blossom

Cherry trees don't grow very high, but the bark of the tree shows its age. The 2006 festival marks the 94th celebration of the original gift of the 3,000 cherry trees from the city of Tokyo to the people of Washington, DC in 1912.


April 2nd weekend is the peak weekend of the cherry blossom. Cherry trees that line up the bank of the Tidal Basin lake attracted millions of tourists from near and far each year. Washington Monument is further out from the lake.


Blooming cherry trees and fresh greens backdropped by Thomas Jefferson Memorial

March 2006-Baltimore Aquarium

One of the few photos that worked! I had taken tons of photos inside the National Maritime Aquarium, just as I did at Virginia Maritime Science Museum in 2004, and few that worked! The problem was I didn't want to sacrifice the photo quality with a film speed below 400, but I didn't have the opportunity to use tripod in the dark indoor either. Most photos were ruined by either shaking hands or moving objects, in this case the fast swimming fishes.


During the dolphin show, a dolphin was identifying the children's hand signals that was taught by the instructor (the guy in the blue/black diving suit). Bottle-nose dolphins' average lifespan is 20 years, but the two dolphins there were 33 years old and 26 years old respectively. And the 33 years old one had a baby last year in the pool, as shown in the video. Poor baby dolphin, the first and only thing he knew about the world is a pond that he can swim across in 2 seconds, instead of the endless ocean!

March 2006-Baltimore Inner Harbor

The day before National Aquarium, Yu's parents and us visited Baltimore on a cool but sunny day. The photo was taken on Federal Hill that overlooks the Inner Harbor, where in the war of 1812, Americans beat back British attackers. We were leaning on the cannon with conqueror's smile.


There must be several thousand people on the Inner Harbor water front. A juggler put up a show at the water front. Those jugglers, including the one I saw at Maryland Renaissance festival, were excellent artists, not for their juggling, but for their reckless effort to "recruit" audience and ability to keep their attentions all the way through the show, last but not the least, to make them laugh. The guy "borrowed" a young boy to collect money for him. The dollar bills quickly filled up the firefighter's helmet the boy was holding. I was interesting to watch the subtle "push and pull" after the show between the boy's father and the juggler. The juggler was ecstasy about the income and tried to hand a few dollars to the boy, but the father apparently didn't want the boy to get acquainted with money at that early age.

February 2006-Washington DC

The lamps at the gate of US Environmental Protection Agent in Washington DC. The golden leaf ornaments and the cap worked splendidly with the base black paint.



At the foot of awesome Washington Monument. The monument can be considered the pin of politics that marked the national capital.
http://www.nps.gov/wamo/