Well it seems like there’s something wrong with the display panel in the elevator at school, so instead of level 1 we now have a level β. I reckon that this is still better than having the elevator display completely wrong floors though. At least I can still make out which level I’m on from this display.

This is the story of how the husband and I almost missed our flight to Milan:

Our flight was departing at 1am on a Saturday, and having spent a whole day at work on Friday, I was totally tired out and simply wanted to sleep. After reaching the airport, checking in and having supper, we saw that there were free moving screenings at the theatre in Terminal 3, and while the husband was watching the show, I was happily napping while waiting to board our flight.

I remember that we’re supposed to head to the gate for boarding in advance, and for previous flights I’ve taken, I’ve spent quite some time at the boarding gate waiting to board the plane. But the husband said something about only needing to be there about 15min in advance, and since I was extremely tired that day, I didn’t double check the time and just went to sleep.

As the departure time of our flight neared, we slowly headed towards the boarding gate, and on our way there, we received 2 calls from an unknown number. Now the husband usually doesn’t pick up called from unknown numbers, but somehow he decided to pick up the second call, and it turns out that it was from the airport staff, asking where we were, since everyone else had already boarded the plane. Thankfully we were already close to the boarding gate by then, and we hurried over, cleared the security check and brisk-walked all the way to the plane. I’m never late for things like this, and I reckon we wouldn’t have been that late if (1) I wasn’t so tired and remembered to check when we had to be at the boarding gate, (2) We weren’t in the theatre but rather somewhere else where we could see the screens indicating which gates were ready for boarding. But most thankfully we made the flight, and we didn’t have to wait to clear the security check or to board the plane.

I’ve heard of cases where people have missed (or nearly missed) their flight, and I never thought that something like this would happen to me. We reached the boarding gate very early on our return flight, and never again will I be late to the boarding gate! Nearly missing the flight once is more than enough…

Campanile is the Italian word meaning “bell tower”, and the husband and I visited a few of them on our trip to Italy. Going up St Mark’s Campanile in Venice gave us a lovely view of the city, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa was a wonderful sight in itself. But perhaps that one that left the strongest impression on me was Giotto’s Campanile in Florence.

When we first visited St Mark’s Campanile in Venice, access to the top of the tower was via a lift, which was fast, convenient and painless. At Giotto’s Campanile however, things were pretty different. You still had to pay to go up the structure, but this time, there was no lift. Instead, it was a 414-step climp all the way to the top.

I didn’t think to much before deciding to get tickets, but a while after our climb started, I wondered if the view at the top was going to be worth not just the ticket price, but also the amount of work and energy required to climb the structure. And when we got past the halfway mark, I was starting to regret a little…

But since we were already more than halfway through, I couldn’t just give up like that, and somehow we managed to make our way up to the top. What greeted us at the very top of the bell tower were other tired tourists, and a staff sitting in his little office, probably watching the visitors make their way up. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a private lift or something in the campanile, because having to climb up 414 steps (and more than once too) each day much be a real torture! If getting to work means having to climb that many steps, I wouldn’t even want to go down the bell tower to get lunch, use the toilet or anything because it would mean having to climb all the way up again. (Well thinking about it, I guess there should be a toilet up there. I mean, what if the staff needs to go on a toilet break urgently…) In any case, I guess whoever sitting at the top must be really fit if he has to do all that climbing!

As we walked out to the platform at the top, we got to enjoy a nice breeze as well as a lovely, unobstructed view of the city. The climb wasn’t easy, and I’ll certainly think twice before doing something like this again, but it was definitely an experience to remember.

The husband and I just got back from our trip to Italy just over a week ago. Rome was the city which we spent the most time in, and our hotel, despite being small, felt cozy. The hotel only had 7 rooms, and while there was a sitting area near the reception, there wasn’t any breakfast area, or somewhere we could have our meals. Instead, breakfast was served to our room each day. The breakfast menu never changed much, but it wasn’t an issue to me, since having breakfast provided was better than having nothing at all.

The good thing about having breakfast served to our rooms was that we could laze around a bit more if we wanted to, without having to change and head downstairs, or even outside for breakfast. Also, the mornings tended to be cold, so being able to eat breakfast while snuggled under the sheets was something very welcome.

Speaking of our trip, it certainly was an interesting experience, especially since it’s my first visit to Europe. There are certainly many more stories waiting to be told!

Not the fruit, but the company and brand.

I had the picture saved in my phone, and wanted to start writing this series yesterday, but then decided to put it off and post something else instead. Then, waking up this morning, the news that Steve Jobs has passed away broke, and along with it came a flurry of online activity, with people talking about Steve Jobs and sending their condolences…

Some years ago, Microsoft dominated the computer market, and few people owned Macs, or even had any interest in it. I remember back in Junior College, my school had 2 rows of computers in the library. One row had the standard PCs running windows, while the other row was full of Macs. The computers running Windows were always fully occupied, while pretty much no one wanted to use the Macs. But as time passed, with the launch of the iPod, iPhone 3G and 3GS, Apple started to come into prominence in the market. As more people took to these gadgets, it gave them an awareness of Apple as a brand, as well as the line of Macintosh computers as well. I believe that as more people used Apple’s products, and decided that they liked it, they decided that Mac computers are worth a try as well. And this could very well be one of the reason why iMacs and Macbooks are so common these days – many of my friends own one! It helps that more hardware and software have become compatible with Mac computers and software as the years passed, since these incompatibilities were one of the reasons that deterred people from switching back then. Apple has come so far… I pretty sure if they still have Macs in my Junior College’s library today, there will be more people using it.

When the husband and I moved into our new place, we decided to get a new desktop computer. We were debating over whether to get a PC or a Mac back then – PC because all the programmes I had licenses for so far were for the PC, and some programmes that I use don’t have Mac equivalents, and Mac because of the design (no separate CPU is a big plus!), and the OS isn’t difficult to use anyway. After some thinking and weighing out the pros and cons, we ended up with a Mac, and haven’t regretted since. (I haven’t given up on Windows though! I still need some of the programmes I have there, and we have a separate partition running Windows on our Mac.)

Jobs at a Stanford commencement speech in June 2005: ‎”No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.”

Steve Jobs died a little too young, a little too fast… He may have left us, and the new will come, but the impact he has made to the IT industry will be felt many generations to come. Thank you for the years that you spent at Apple, and all that you have given us. RIP.