I am very excited to bring my two kids to Yahoo Campus for the Halloween Parade, kraft and fun for kids. I missed it last year.

This year, my household may have problems in 'Trick O Treat' as we are not prepared with large bag of candies. And I always get arguments in the family in getting extra candies as my household is banned from candies. My family is health nuts and it is a price that we have to pay -- no candies.

And I am commuting with Yahoo shuttle again on Tuesday and it will be a challenge for me to buy the missing candies at home -- bummer.

We have a visit to the Children Discovery Museum. The kids love it but both of them get very cranky towards the end and it was not fun dealing with them when they get cranky on our way back home. The pictures and videos capture the good part of the outings.

And Ben has a lot of fun playing with the flying ball that is blown out on air.

Another video on the Band in Oktoberfest when it got even darker and I tried using the BestShot video mode in Casio ex-z750 with Night Scene.

Happy 9th Anniversary to my sweetie. I have to have a post for my beloved. She deserves the very best from me and I can only hope that she knows how much I love her and the kids.

We do have ups and downs in our lives especially with two kids and long hours of work but yesterday was an awesome day that I took her and my elder boy back to where we had our wedding banquet. The place looks just like yesterday and we chat with the owner of the restaurant, Hong Fu in Cupertino. I miss my wedding and everything that goes with it including the restaurant.

I am rededicating myself to be a better Dad and a better husband for the 10th anniversary to come.

I am compassionate about my friends. They inspire me. And special thanks go to Sam who has encouraged me to go jogging with him for 2+ miles two to three times a week and I find the happiest moment of my day in the small hill loop close to Yahoo campus.

It is a shame that I have taken a break from gym and jogging in the last month due to various excuses but otherwise I have been on course for regular exercise for the last eight months.

My cholesterol level has been down a little ever since I started regular exercise in the gym and jogging with Sam. Not by much, I vaguely recall the number going from 248 to 221 and it is still far from the normal level of 200 and perhaps 180 as my ideal level.

I sure want to run and bike like any of my three friends in the pictures. They are the nicest bunch who have inspired me.

We visited Circuit City last Sunday and both of my kids had a great time with the FireDog in the store front. They cheered the big guy in the store. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery but today is a gift and both of my kids inspire me every single day.

There is nothing like a good cup of coffee in the morning before the long day of work. Ever since I visited Mission Coffee, I come back often to refresh my morning. I deserve better and Mission Coffee fills the need.

My other Tech Corner blog about digital photography, internet, software, blog advertising and journey into dSLR

I always enjoy the band playing in the Yahoo campus. This band plays in the Ocktoberfest. It is late into the evening and my p&s can't catch up very well with the night scene.

Jonathan and I are identical twins. I am the younger one of the two. I was not discovered until Jonathan was born in hospital. To make the long story short, the doctor and nurse told my Mom about me the moment when Jon was out and I was 10 minutes after Jon. In some dramatic way, I am a surprise to the world.

Jon always looks younger with a baby face and he has a smile that I cherish every single day. I miss family back home in Macau. And it is easy for me to get into tears in thinking of my twin brother back home. We are so close in the pictures and yet we are so far away in distance. My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.

Everyday I come to you and lift my voice

to honor you and worship you.
Every hour of every day,
I will bow my heart to praise and worship you.
For you are the most holy, almighty, beloved, the ever living God
You are the savior of the world,
the ever living God, the living God
Almighty, beloved, the savior of the world,
So holy, most holy, the ever living God
The ever living God.

--
Lyric from "The Living God" by Charlie & Jill LeBlanc with "Amazing, live in Nashville"

I continue the mall visit with my Casio ex-z750 in the weekend enjoying my time with my wife and two kids. We find a kool McDonald in Standford Shopping Center. Piano Music is played in this place. Hey, this is McDonald up a notch! This is my very first M with a Piano that I have ever visited.

We stay in the mall for a little over an hour. This is not as exciting as the indoor shopping mall in previous mall venture that I later wrote up on Picasa as post processing photo editing tool. But I do find interesting door front, shops and art decoration. For some odd reason, my kids like Bloomingdales. Perhaps, the art displays get their attention.

I am somewhat bored in a wedding banquet and I keep shooting pictures with the candle, flower and wine bottle on the table. I find Picasa Focal B&W very helpful in changing similar pictures to a different tone and mood. It is very nice to get such a wonderful feature on a free tool. Suprisingly good.

After the Picasa review, the Effects in focal b&w has become my favorite of use in Picasa. I hope I am not over-using the feature. But when I get bored, I shoot roughly the similar subjects and the Focal B&W comes in handy in creating a different picture based on the same subject. I am novice and this feature adds another dimension to my amateur shooting skills.

Upon turning a picture to Focal B&W, the program in Picasa allows you to change the subject of coloring and provides you the size to alter the circular dimension of the coloring subject of your choice. After the application of Focal B&W effect, I usually go back and adjust the 'highlight', 'fill light' and 'shadow' in 'Tuning' section.

I always gets inspired by my kids in their interest and curiosity with everything in their surroundings.

My friend Raj has composed videos on a team outing with bowling in Movie Maker based on short clips from the two Casio ex-z750 that he and I brought to the outing.

Our family had a pleasant visit to the Olive Festival in Fremont. I learned about the festival from Mission Coffee that I visited last week. What a great treat from visiting events that are annual. And I love the jazz band playing very nice music all around the event.

Again, I have my p&s in my backpack and I like all the displays on olive products and decorations with artworks. Only the first vendor that I visit prefers no pictures and I have then learned to ask courteously for the rest with a smile and honest compliment to their products.

Fremont is a great city full of activities for the family. It is a city that I love living in. It just had a 50th anniversary in in central park. And I only managed to have a single picture in the event due to a very short visit because of family matter.

I have lunch once in Apple campus with two of my buddies. Upon finishing lunch and on our way to the famous Apple store, one of my friend remarks that we are in the wrong profession working in a cube with long hours. The California weather is what I enjoy the most in living in the bay area and it is an irony that I take picture like these only when family members visiting from afar.

Flash Slideshow

There is no beginning or end.
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is mystery.
Today is a gift.

-- author Unknown

Going to the mall is not my favorite activities but with two kids, visiting mall is the easiest thing to do for a tired Mom and Dad. It is my very first time that I take along my point and shoot and go wild in shooting a bunch of pictures in a mall. My casio ex-z750 sometimes has problems in low light pictures at home. In the series, I shot all pictures without flash and turn up the ev compensation to +0.3 and post process in Picasa afterwards.

And with the first time experience in taking over 30+ pictures, going to a mall will become a different kind of experience for me from now on. My passion has been taking pictures in things that I run into, capturing a wonderful glimse of a moment, an object that gets my attention, or anything that looks interesting and artistic. I am very surprised with the 2 hours photographing experience in the mall. While looking for objects to picture on, I realize that the mall is surrounded by photographic works done by professionals -- it is learning tool to observe what professionals have done in the mall. It is simply a display of quality works and arts for commercials.

I am quite happy with the experience. My casio ex-z750 doesn't disappoint by much. And I get great help from Picasa in post processing on some under or over exposed pictures, and Picasa provides special effects for black & white as well as soft focus, and focal black & white.

I have a write up on Picasa in my Tech Corner blog page, it is a wonderful editing tool that everyone can grasp without a long learning curve.