Family Circle

There was a robot named DX 8597 who lived in the future. There were flying cars; no wars, no weapons, and the robots ruled the world. The B.R.A.I.N., or the Big Reddish Ample Inter-Robot Network controlled all of the robots. It was a big brain. Everyone lived happily, even the last surviving people (which is 1/300th of the population today). But little did they know that trouble was brewing.

There was a man called Joe. He worked at Häagen-Dazs and had a content life. He wasn’t rich, or poor. After all, a house, a wife, food, water and some extra money was all you needed, right? Who needs the fancy mansions and towers of money and gold and jewels and all the other stuff? Yes, he was living happily. But little did he know that trouble was brewing.

The B.R.A.I.N. needed a constant supply of water. Because of that, the Walnut Creek, the largest Creek ever, was dammed. There was a pipe leading to the B.R.A.I.N. from the bottom of the Creek. There were also many tubes to peoples’ and robots’ homes for their usage to keep the water level equal at the Creek.

One day, as Joe was looking around, he found this remote and asked other employees what it did. They all said ‘I don’t know, why don’t you try it?’ But Joe knew it might set off a bomb or some other thing as dangerous. So he asked the boss. Once the boss saw Joe with that remote in his hand he nearly fainted. “Now don’t you press the button” he said. “Or you’re fired! Oh, yeah, I couldn’t!”

All robots (except for DX 8597) had special super powers that specialize in a robotian element i.e., Air, Fire, Water, Earth, Space, Life, or Supernatural. DX 8597 had all the powers. He could make water come at his will. He could make a fire in space. He could direct an earthquake away from a town. He was literally unstoppable.

Joe was curious. Of what his boss meant and what the remote did. Half of his brain said push the button and the other half said don’t do it. Which one? He struggled taking his eyes off of it. Finally, he made up his decision. He would not push the remote. He locked it up in a drawer and bolted the drawer shut. That ought to make me forget about the button.

DX 8597 had many friends. One of them, SF 71097, was a member of the S.A.F.E., the Secret Agent Formal Enterprise and had sworn to never give out his identity or befriend a non-S.A.F.E. But she was evil. And she had a plan to destroy DX 8597.

One day, as Joe was trying his exclusive new Cinnamon Dulché de Leche ice cream, He needed to go to the bathroom. He went, and as he was, he felt a rectangular thing and didn’t remember it, now that he had forgotten about the remote. He patted the thing and then he did it. He had pressed the button.

SF 71097 had hosted a private party as a lure into a trap. At first, DX 8597 said he didn’t have time, and then SF 71097 pleaded so terribly that DX 8597 had to go. He flew to the house in light speed with his air and supernatural skills, but just as he was about to open the door, he heard a beeping sound he had ever heard before. He used his X-Ray vision and saw bombs! He immediately zoomed away and wasn’t ever SF 71097’s friend.

Joe was frozen in time. He stayed there for twenty centuries. Even the Fire Age of 13542-17001 didn’t melt him. But one day, DX 8597 found him and with his heat vision, DX 8597 de-froze Joe. With his life powers, DX 8597 brought Joe back to life.

SF 71097 turned on the brain now, and she put it under pressure, straining the brain and making it evil. “HEE HEE HAA HAA HOO HOO!! NOW, ALL THE ROBOTS MUST OBEY MY COMMANDS!! NOW, DESTROY THE PUNY LITTLE HUMANS!!”

They did as told. Only the Life and Supernatural robots withstanded the cry. The robots rampaged around and used their powers to destroy. Joe had an idea. “DX guy, you call all the supernatural and life robots! After you’re done come back here!” DX 8597 obeyed.

The robots came, and Joe seemed like the Boss. “First things First! Do any of you have elasticity?” A cry of ‘yes!’ came from supernatural. “Do any of you have regrow?” “Yes!” came from the Life. “Now! Get all the remaining evil robots in a group!” The robots scurried away. Only DX 8597 was left.

After a while, DX 8597 got a signal from the others. “They’ve got ‘em.” he said. DX 8597 flew away, with Joe clinging to his ankles.

They were there at the site. “Now, one of you, use elasticity with your arms to tie them all together!” “But we’ll have to pull off our arm!” “Exactly. Life robots will regrow it.” “Okay…”Very soon it was done, and Joe ordered them back to the B.R.A.I.N.

It seemed that only a button was pushed, the ‘turn evil’ button. That was soon altered. Everything was back to normal.

Life was like it used to be, and Joe got used to it. He found that Häagen Dazs was running even in the future; he got a job. He also became vice-vice-pres. of DX8597.

[2007.07.01] I planned to go to Greenwich on Sunday because it is a little far away. I want to visit the invisible line that divides east and west on earth.

In the morning, I stopped by Buckingham Palace to see changing guards at 10:00am. I did see a small group of horse guards running by, but I did not get to see the real changing guards, as a policeman told me that the changing will happen at 11:30am. I decided to move on, after I filmed a short pieces of the several guards playing comic style switching position.

Buckingham Palace is at the corner of St. James park, and the other side of park located all British government buildings, including Cabinet War Room and Downing Street. It was a pleasant walk in the beautiful park along the lake side - I will post some pictures later.

As I walked along Horse Guards road toward Trafalger Square, I suddenly saw huge crowds - today is the annual London 10K run event. Ten of thousands of people were running from the Big Ben area towards Trafalger, and completed the run on Whitehall street. There were foot guards and horse guards in knight dress, carrying a sword, posing for people to take photo. Of course, there were real security outside the Downing St.

As I passed by the Big Ben, it rang for 12:00 o’clock. I went to quickly to Westminster pier to catch the 12:30pm ferry to Greenwich. The boat ride on river Thames was exciting, as you can see those landmark structures passing by, such as London Eye, London Tower and Tower bridge. And it was fun that the rain started but people could not hold their umbrella because the wind of running boat. As we were approaching Greenwich, it was a surprise to see a modern financial center in Canary Wharf. You can recognize Greenwich by the old Royal Naval College building, as it welcomes you to visit its glorious history.

On the top of mountain behind the old Royal Naval college sits the Royal Observatory of Greenwich. Here hosts two important things: the center of space and time for planet Earth. A clock and a digital display on a wall are showing the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT); and a shining steel structure shows the prime Meridian, the 0.0′0′’ longitude of Earth. I stood there with one foot on east and another foot on west - I have a picture to prove it! Inside the Observatory, you can things about the history of time definition and space exploration - things you would see in other observatory.

On the way back, I want to pass through the complex of several magnificant buildings. The old Royal Naval college has buildings in grand scale with huge column of posts. The buildings are in a symertrical arrangement, with a court in the middle. Behind the college resided the Queen’s House, where the Queens and Kings of Tudor time lived here. Now the Queen’s house is pretty much empty, with lots of portraits of Royal family on the wall, as well as lots of lots of paintings about the glorious past of Royal Naval army.

After being a guest in Queen’s house, I wandered into one of the tower building of Royal Naval college. It is a Chapel, with paintings on the roof and everywhere. I sat there, felt relaxing after a day’s of travel and found inner peace looking the heavenly surrounding.

The other tower is Painted Hall. It has more grand paintings on the huge roof and walls. I don’t know the significance of the paintings, mostly naked goddess and angels flying around. But I did not feel the type of tranquility I felt in the Chapel.

[2007.06.30] There were two foiled car bomb attacks in central London on Friday, and my wife cautioned me that I stay away from crowded places, such as mass transport, city center, concerts, sport events. But most of areas in London are quite busy.
I thought Wimbledon is outside of city, and the Tennis center is spreaded out on a vast ground; so it seems a rather safer choice if I ever leave the hotel room. Of course, life still goes on, we just need a little more vigilent. As I got the Tube, the train to city center was packed and the one to Wimbledon was pretty much empty. So I hopped on to Wimbledon train.

I really want to visit Wimbledon while my stay in London coincided with top tennis event. There are three events of Chinese players this Saturday: Lady’s double of S. Peng + Z. Yan; Girl’s single of Y-M Zhou; and lady’s double of T. Sun(a little bit left over from Friday because of rain). Of course, I have chances of seeing other games of great players such as S. William, M. Sharapova etc.

After queued in the rain for about an hour, I got in the Wimbledon tennis ground, ready to see some events of the 2007 Championships. The Grounds are all open air, which causes the games being dictated by weather conditions. The center court is the regular stadium we normally see on TV with seating surrounding the court. No. 1 and No. 2 have decent seats too. Most of other courts just have very limited seats on court sides.

The game was scheduled to start at 11:00am, but the rain keeps drizzling, then stops a little while, and then pours again. It seems to trick people into disappointment and excitement. All courts are covered with air blowed inside the cover. The whole grounds look like a farm place with plastic coverings to fend off frost. Around 1:00pm, official gave a go-ahead to start the games, all quickly all courts are rolled open. It was really interesting to see how they deflat the cover, and rolled the cover with strings. But several minutes later, it was ordered that all grounds be covered again. After such back-forth for two hours, we finally got game going. The boys/girls who will pick tennis balls marched in; then the umpires got into positions. It was fun to see everything in motion. I saw the tiny action details of picking and rolling the balls, giving the balls to players; they all have special ways of doing those - which you might have never noticed.

I sat on Court 7, where scheduled with first game of Man’s double (GER vs USA); second game of Lady’s double (CHN vs GER) when Peng & Yan will play. I cheered for USA team - I realized that USA team becomes my supported team, just after CHN team after living in USA for so many years. The first set was decided by a tie-breaker, and USA team lost by 6-7. Just several minutes into second set, it started drizzling again, the game was called off, and the ground was covered again. I waited for the rain to stop, until 7:30pm. The official announced the day was over because it never stopped drizzling.

In summary, it was quite an experience, even the weather ruined the day. I hope David, Emily and Junyu were here too.
I went to dinner at Chez Gerrard in Covent Garden. The french restaurant makes the olive so delicious (I hate olive usually) and I ate all of them in the dish. Also the anchivous butter was really good too; I thought it was goose-liver, but the waiter insisted it was anchivous butter (maybe he is right:).

Now that dad is gone and I am alone with my sister and babysitter, the only time I have time with my mom is on the weekends and the evenings. What do I do?

Yesterday I went with my Mom to the movies to watch RATATOUILLE (rat a too ie). It was hilarious. It took place in Paris where a rat named Remy who has a keen sense of smell and can cook and a man named Linguini who dosen’t know how to cook and gets a job at a famous restaurant named Gusteau’s. Little did Linguini know that he was the rightful heir for the manager. Without knowing, he become the garbage boy and while he was mopping, he accidentally knocked part of a pot of soup out and was so anxious Linguini started adding all the spices he could find. He tried the soup and he threw up. So the rat kicked in and with his cooking skills made it so delicious that the customer was delighted. Soon the word spead and everybody started ordering the soup while all the employees thought it was Linguini who made to soup so delicious. Linguini knew it was Remy and soon he went up in Linguini’s hair and he agreed for Remy to control him by pulling on different parts of his hair. He impressed the current manager so much that the manager let Linguini take his place. In the end, he told everyone that it was the rat in his hair controlling him and making the dishes the employees didn'’t belive him and quit. So Remy’s rat family took over and the next day an employee returned and saw all the rats swarming about the kitchen and finally belived that “Anyone Can Cook”… even a rat!

After the movie, we went to the CPK and ate pizza and ravioli. It was good!

I woke up today and played piano. We cleaned up the house and we washed the car. Water splashed everywhere and we slowly wiped off the bird poo. In the end, it was sparkly clean and smooth.

We ate at McDonald’s for lunch and played in the back where there was a play structure.

Everything is going fine and I am content.