Friday, November 23, 2012

Worst News of My Life

Haven't been able to update for some time. Mostly due to many busy things that is happening in life in general. Couple days ago, my mother past away from cancer. It was very sad that she past away at a very young age, but we must move on with our lives and continue to live with her values. I am grateful for all the things that my mom taught me, and she will be remembered forever in my heart and memories.

Our whole family had to do a lot of planning and preparation for the funeral service. We decide to do a burial for mom. I just want to list out the things that we've conducted as a reference for those who are needing to deal with this kind of situation. Hope this will help out some people, because many of us don't have experience in funeral service.  As a first timer, overall, I think we did an good job.

There are many ways to do a funeral service, and it really depends on the cultural background of your family, and how your family to do the funeral. Well for us, Chinese immigrants in Canada, we want to make everything simple, but at the same time, have some Chinese tradition elements. Here are the things that you should do if someone passes away (in Canada). Like our funeral director say, there are no right or wrong ways of doing it. It's just how you wanted it to be.

  1. Pick a funeral home - They'll provide most of the solution and information, usually family owned are less expansive. Also, there is something call per-arrangement in some funeral home, which you can have discount. This only applies when you make payments before the person past away. If you choose burial, the basic package are around 3-4 grand Canadian Dollars for burial, that price include funeral service (picking up the remains from hospital, funeral home facilities...etc), embalming (for viewing), funeral coach (for bringing the decease to the cemetery), hiring a presider (MC during the service), death certificate and some consumer protection plan as a anti-fraud/identity theft function. After all that, you will need to pick a casket of your choice. It ranges from $500-$35,000 (MJ used 35grand one, its all gold plated) Canadian, and the most popular picks are those around $2,000-$3,000 mark. Usually, the service will last about an hour and a half.
  2. Pick a cemetery - There are corporate owned or city owned. I'll talk about city own first. Usually, there are some restriction for city owned cemetery. There are resident and non-resident pricing, and the price for non-resident can be quite high (pay premium). Also, some city owned cemetery would not allow non-resident to buy the burial plot. As for corporate owned cemetery, they are usually a bit higher in price, but there's no area restriction. However, sometimes, there may be some restricted area for per-arrangement, meaning there are some spot that you can't buy if the person that will be using the burial plot has not pass away yet. This is to help safe some spot for those in need. Anyhow, you will need to decide on cremation or burial service. For cremation - you can pick a urn, then pick the place to put the urn. There are four places to pick, indoor clear-wall, brick wall, mozelium, and ground burial. Indoor clear-walls, like its name, is located indoor with a clear wall covering the urn; besides putting the urn, people may also decorate the plot, it can look quite artsy and modern. Brick wall, is another option, is just a wall covering the urn in brick. Next, mozelium, is a wall covering the urn with granite. Finally, the last option is to bury the cremation in the ground. For pricing, you ask for the burial plot price, lining price, and foundation price. For burial plot, some cemetery have double slot for pair of caskets.
  3. Buy flowers - There are three major types, flower-spray ($200+ approx.), flower-rings ($100-$200 approx.), and flower-pod ($50-$70 approx.). The most expansive are listed respectively. I think the flower-spray is a must for burial, it goes on top of the casket. The other two are usually for relatives and friends to buy. Don't buy too many, since you never know who else will buy more flower to the funeral home.
  4. *EXTRA Chinese Traditions - If you want to follow all the tradition, please goto China town to ask those expert for help. I will just talk about some of the procedure that can happen when some Chinese customs are performed during the funeral service. First, Burn the "ticket to ???" (need to fill-in somthing and it's a large piece of yellow paper) on the day before the funeral service. Near the end of the funeral service, burn another "ticket ???". Second, Place those joss paper, and all sorts of tradional paper besides the casket. Third, get blankets to cover the remains, and pillow for the head area. Forth, buy two pack of joss paper plus tradion paper; one is burn in the chapel, one is burn in the cemeter area.
Here are just some information for reference. Hope this helps. 

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

I am still here :)

Wow, I haven't update for a long time. I mean REAL LONG TIME! Basically, I am working atm.

During my free time, I played League of Legend and Navyfield just for the HA. For League of Legends, solo queue starts to get boring. I tend to not go bot lane now since its so partner reliant. It's hard to coordinate with strangers since everyone have different experience and play style. So now, I will fill the roles for jungle most of the time because 80% of the time, there are no jungler. Anyways, so far the new heros doesn't really appeal to me. Guess I will have to wait.

On the otherhand, Diablo 3 is coming out. When it's out, I will probably spend most of my time on that. I tried the beta, its pretty sweet expereince, but act 1 seems a bit to me. Just 7 more days. I can't wait!

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Navyfield + Windows 7 64bit

Wow, I just got a new computer and wow, NF setup installation began yet again. After long hours of investigating and experimenting, finally sovled this issue. Here is what I did.

1. Install to program file x86 folder
2. set compatiblity mode to Win 98/Win Me for the 3 application
3. set run as admin on all 3 application
4. click the last 3 options on all 3 application
5. Add the 3 application to the list of DEP
6. Add Virtual Memory (double the physical memory)

Done. No more screen lag.

P.S. Funny story, I had the first HA with the new fleet that I joined. What happen is that cuz of the lag, I was staying so passive in HA tile that I kept on getting yelled at "push the lane!!". I know that if I push, I am pretty sure I will get sunk in this condition, so I just stay back and let the opponent to push and hit him the save way. However, our fleet leader doesn't like the sight of that. Even though we won the HA with 50min to spare. True story.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Lack of Update

Wow, I havn't update since september of 2011 and yet its already Feburary 2012. Happy New Year BTW! Have everyone have a good health. Been really busy with work, and was busy during Lunar New Year eventhough I have the whole week of holiday. Good thing is got lots of red envelope :)

Anyways, been playing with League of Legends, man its sure addicting. Its a reminiscent of old school DOTA. I've reached lv 30 already and its starting to get competitive. I might make a smurf account just for fun or trying out new build if I have time. As for Pokie Ninja, I ditched it long time ago, IMO its unbalance. There are not much variety in terms of skills placement. As for Navyfield, I haven't touched it for almost half a year due to LoL's. But now I ll go back Navyfield to grind some more now that I've reached lv 30 in LoL. The grind will end once Diablo 3 comes out, which is suppose to be releasing Q1 of 2012. I hope there wont be any more delay for D3. Although, I heard alot of negative comments in the forums regarding diablo 3, I am still anticipating the game.

Will probably update more now that I am settle, and that's it for now

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Mini 4wd Oct Meeting

To sum it up, this meeting was a disaster. The track is the toughest roller coster I ever expereinced. It has consecutive jumps, 90degree turns then a jump then 90degree turns (killed alot of cars). My car can't tackle that turns. Eventhough this time is time attack, I couldn't even complete 1 complete lap, which is pathetic.

My final setup were:
- double roller 9mm front, and 9mm back
- medium diameter wheel
- yellow-silver motor
- 3.5:1 gear ratio
- AO620
- Brake for front & back
- Added additional weight (1.5+1.5+2+2 = TOTAL 7 g)

There were two chances for the time attacked, and I blew it both times. I must admit I am very close to succeed at the final time attack. I believe it just needs bit more brake, and some more weight. If that doesn't work, I ll need to have small diameter or use a slower motor like orange silver / even chick-motor.

There were some damages for my car; couple of screws are bent (NOTE: FRONT LEFT is bent). Funny thing is that there are some car even faster than my car and still made it. I believe they are using yellow silver or orange-silver motor. Just that their roller & gear is super smooth.

Next time on my buy list, I must get the following items:
- 2&3mm screws pack
- MS orange/silver motor

That's all I could think of now. O yea, I finally became a member, just need to get the membership card in next meeting.