Teardrop!

[Sunday March 30th]
Anna and I have been toying with the idea of buying a teardrop camper. We did a lot of searching for companies that make them. As it turns out they are becoming more and more popular . All the manufacturers we spoke with had hefty backlogs.

Anna looked on http://www.craigslist.com for used trailers and found one up in Sandstone, Minnesota. Since we were in Minnesota for FIRST already, so we decided to drive up to Sandstone after FIRST and check it out.

On our way up there we stopped in Hinkley, home of a big casino. Unfortunately their hotel was booked so no crazy night of gambling for us! We pushed on straight to Sandstone itself and found a classic country highway motel 'Motel 61'. Ah, Motel 61... It had the essentials ;)

As you can see by the pictures, we bought it! The couple selling it were very nice and let us take it for a test tow. We took it out on the highway and around town. The car pulls it very nice. We got inside and checked it all out. We found ourselves starting to say things like "we'll do this, or that". Then we knew we were going to buy it.

The guy who we bought it from built it himself. Its primarily plywood sitting on a commercial frame.

So what is it? Its a lightweight trailer for camping ;) The inside has a bed thats just a little smaller than a full size bed. 4'x6' with a foam mattress. It also has some cabinets, a ceiling vent with fan, and lighting. Around the back, and under the hatch, is a kitchenette. It sports a three-burner gas stove, sink, and cupboards. Other items to note are the AC outlets so we can plug-in at campsites as well as a battery and inverter so we can run stuff without having an electric hook-up.

We're very excited! We're planning on taking it on our honeymoon.

FIRST - Minnesota

Team #93 attended the Minnesota Regional competition held this last weekend in Minneapolis. The team was firing on all cylinders and had a great weekend. We received four new trophies and a banner! The trophies are for being part of the winning alliance, Rockwell Automation Innovation in Controls Award, Underwriters Laboratories Industrial Safety Award, and Johnson & Johnson Gracious Professionalism Award.

A special thanks to everyone who came out to watch the event and support the team! Anna, my fiancée came out all weekend. My Grandpa Dick came out on Friday and Saturday. My Mother Sue, sisters Taylor & Elizabeth, Aunt Deb and John, her son Johnny came out on Saturday. Anna's brother Dave made it on Friday.

Thursday at the competition was a practice day set up for most teams to work the bugs out of their systems. We had most of our bugs worked out from the Milwaukee regional, but made some improvements to the autonomous modes. One major update gave the robot the ability to navigate over an entire lap in 15 seconds without a driver! Very cool. This allowed us to gain critical points at the beginning of the match. During the practice matches the driver and operator got the feel of the robot back after not working with it for two weeks. Everything was working very well and it appeared to be the makings of a very good weekend.

In addition of the 54 teams there were 30 rookie teams at this competition. Many of the rookie teams were struggling to have even partially functional robots. Because of this many of the mentors and students from our team went out to help as many of the other teams as possible. We rewired an entire robot for another team, provided multiple teams with software support, helped teams work through many mechanical issues including a robot that was 60 pounds overweight, and countless teams came to us to use or borrow tools and learn from us. Near the end of the day a mother of a student from a rookie team walked by our pit where we repair our robot. She made the comment that we are one of the most intimidating teams there due to our experience and professionalism. One of the mentors responded that we’re not intimidating…we’re inspiring. We were once again ‘doing FIRST’.

Friday during the qualifying rounds we ran very well. We were in the very first match of the day and proceeded to rack up nearly ninety points. Unfortunately we were outscored by 12 points and lost this match. It was a very tough opening round but was a great way to get the crowd pumped up for this inaugural regional even. We won the next six matches and ended the day with a record of 6 wins, 1 loss, and were ranked in 2^nd out of the 54 teams attending.

Also on Friday I got terribly sick! Anna and Dave went to go get me some medicine and when they got back they found me leaving the bathroom looking 'green'. Everyone knows that it takes a lot for me to throw in the towel but after some coaxing I went back to the hotel to get some rest and get over whatever hit me.

On Friday there is a partial awards ceremony that follows the qualifying matches to recognize teams that have unique accomplishments. During this ceremony we won the Rockwell Automation Innovation in Controls award for features implemented on the robot to conserve power during the match. This award celebrated an innovative control system or application of control components to provide unique machine functions.

Saturday morning I was feeling better and headed back to the competition. We had two remaining qualifying matches. Both matches were very close. We won the first match. During the second match we had a sensor feedback failure which rendered our robot arm unusable and we lost by a very close margin. At the end of the qualifying rounds we had a record of 8 wins and 2 losses and were ranked 3^rd overall.

After the qualifying round there was an alliance selection process where the top 8 teams can pick two other teams to join them. We were in a position to either pick two other teams to join us for an alliance or be picked by a higher ranking team to join their alliance. During the alliance selection the first ranked team picked us and we joined them. Together we selected another team that complimented us and the alliance got the robots and teams ready for competition for the afternoon of best-of-3 elimination matches.

During the eliminations rounds we went up against groups of strong alliances. We had a purely offensive strategy of brute-force outscoring our competition by using two robots to hurdle the ball and the third robot operating as a race car running laps. Our alliance consistently scored between 94 to 102 points every match. Because of our strategy and well functioning robots we were able to win the quarter finals, semifinals, and finals rounds without loosing a single match.

During the awards ceremony that followed, awards were given out for various accomplishments. We won three additional awards during this ceremony.

Because of the organized manner, cleanliness, and safety features displayed we won the Underwriter Laboratories Industrial Safety award. This award celebrated the team that progressed beyond safety fundamentals by using innovative ways to eliminate or protect against hazards. The winning team consistently demonstrated excellence in industrial safety performance that showed throughout the competitions from uncrating to re-pack.

Due to the tremendous amount of support we provided to other teams we won the Johnson & Johnson Sportsmanship Award. This award celebrated outstanding sportsmanship and continuous gracious professionalism in the heat of competition, both on and off the playing field.

The third award was for being a member of the winning alliance for the robotics competition.

N.E.W. Apple Corps Robotics, Team #93 continues to be a very well respected and competitive team among our peers. We’re already looking forward to championship event coming up the weekend of April 19^th in Atlanta!

Taylor's Trip

[Sunday march 17th]
My sister Taylor went on a school trip to Argentina and just arrived. Here's the latest news!

I am in Mendoza, It is so beautiful! The plane trip here was amazing, despite the 12 hour ride. Being in another country is great, the culture is so different and laid back. The drivers are scary! Today we took a bus from Mendoza to Uspallata with a Geologist from Buenos Aires who specializes in the Andes. I can barely comprehend how incredibly enormous the mountains we have seen are, and we have´t even reached the snow capped Andes yet! They automatically serve wine here every time you sit down, and boy is it strong, it tastes like nail polish remover. But, I try to be polite. I just got back from walking around with some students around town. Their food places don´t even open until 8 or 9, and right now it is so busy out! Everyone inlcuding their kids are out right now having a good time. There are so many shops all around and people are very kind. Well, I must go to bed now. We have a long day tomorrow hiking around. We are headed for San Jose I believe it is. I hope you guys are doing well! I love you all!

FIRST - Milwaukee Day 3

[Saturday March 15th]
Well here’s the summary of the weekend! The weekend started out fairly rough but ended awesome. We got two new trophies! One trophy is for being part of the alliance in the final rounds. A second trophy is for winning the Engineering Inspiration Award. If you want the details, keep reading…

Thursday at the competition is a practice day set up for most teams to work the bugs out of their systems. We took most of the morning on Thursday to make various electrical updates to clean up a ‘crows nest’ of wires and then turned the robot over to software to implement several updates. One major update gave the robot the ability to navigate ¾ of a lap in 15 seconds without a driver. This allowed us to gain critical points at the beginning of the match. During the practice matches the driver and operator had several communications issues and the robot ended the last two matches on its back with no way to recover. It appeared to be the makings for a very long weekend, but it was better to get the bugs worked out then than during the regular matches.

Friday during the qualifying rounds we ran very well. We lost our first match, won the next four, and lost our last match of the day. We ended the day with a record of 4 wins and 2 losses and were ranked 14^th out of the 60 teams attending. We didn’t like the losses, but felt good about our performance mainly because we were the primary scoring robot and were getting better with every match.

Saturday morning we had two remaining qualifying matches with good alliance teams and won the matches. At the end of the qualifying rounds we had a record of 6 wins and 2 losses and were ranked 8^th!

At the end of the qualifying round there was an alliance selection process where the top 8 teams can pick two other teams to join them. We were in a position to either pick two other teams to join us for an alliance or be picked by a higher ranking team and join their alliance. During the alliance selection the fourth ranked team picked us and we joined them. Together we selected another team that complimented us and the alliance got the robots and teams ready for competition for the afternoon of best-of-3 elimination matches.

During the quarter final rounds we went up against a fairly strong alliance, but because of our strategy and well functioning robots we were able to defeat them in two matches and moved onto the semifinal rounds.

In the semifinal rounds we went up against the first seeded alliance consisting of three extremely tough teams. Our only strategy was to brute-force outscore their alliance. They had two robots that could rack up a lot of points, but they had some weaknesses. The first match we won with an 88 to 62 victory. The second match we tied at 70-70. There was some confusion leading to the announcement of the score and we were all on the edge of our seats. Between the second and third match the opponent called a time-out to fix something that broke on one of their robots. They were not able to completely repair one of the robots, so it was no longer able to score very effectively. During the third match the opponent alliance (#1 seed at the competition) decided to double-team defend *our* robot to keep it from scoring. We still managed to rack up a pile of points and won with a score of 72 to 48. This moved us on to the final rounds.

The first match of the final rounds we won by a close victory of 66 to 60. During the second match one of our alliance partners had a breakdown of their drive train which meant we were playing 2-on-3. We lost this round with a score of 44 to 80. Between the second and third match we called a time-out to hopefully give our alliance partner time to make repairs. The repairs took longer than the timeout period, so a backup team was brought in to replace them. During this last match our other alliance partner had a breakdown and again we were playing 2-on-3. We lost this last with a score of 36 to 64 and ended up taking second place.

During the awards ceremony that followed, awards were given out for various accomplishments. In previous years we won the Sportsmanship Award because of the support we provided to other teams during the competition. This year we took it a huge step forward and won the Engineering Inspiration Award. This award is given to a team that advances respect and appreciation for engineering within the team’s school and community. This is the second highest award that FIRST gives out. We won this award because of the work done by the team at various community events including Oktoberfest and Walleye weekend, hosting various robotics camps for grade school students during the summer, and the many links between Team #93, the Tesla charter school, Plexus, and other supporting engineering companies in the community.

N.E.W. Apple Corps Robotics, Team #93 continues to be a very well respected and competitive team among our peers. We’re already looking forward to the next regional competition the weekend of March 28^th in Minneapolis!

FIRST - Overdrive

There have been some questions about what the game is all about. Here is the introduction video shown by FIRST at the kick-off event. It'll fill you in ;)

FIRST - Milwaukee Day 2

[Friday Saturday 14th]
Happy Pi Day! Today was our first actual competition day in the Milwaukee Regional. Yesterday was a practice day. It was a very exciting day! We tried our robot out on the field for the first time. We were all very nervous putting it all together and trying it out. For us Software guys, running autonomous was worrisome because we've *never* ran all our new code with the real robot, and the little testing we did do wasn't on a full-size field! The first autonomous clip you see here is our very first run! We try and run thr robot around the course and do a lap. The robot has to know how far to go, when to stop, when to turn. On our first run the robot quickly goes full speed, all the way across the field with no sign of slowing down or stopping! Image us, running un-tested code, seeing that clip. My heart was racing. I didn't think it would stop! Full speed ahead like the titanic right into the way. Whew, stopped in the nick of time (and thats no small feat!)

By the end of the day we had a 4-2 record and were ranked 13 out of ~60 teams. We're really happy with how well things are going. We did get one of our tusks (grabbers) bent out of shape on the last match but we were able to get fixed right away and move on. Tomorrow is our big day. Who are we? 93!

Sunroom

This is the first in a series home improvement posts. First we'll start with the Sunroom! This was one of our first projects.

The previous owners did a great job assembling this room. The entire room is lined with beautiful stained wood. They furnished it with offwhite coaches and green blinds. It was a country feel.

One common and reoccurring theme was the previous owners had dogs! Hair everywhere! Our allergies to dogs, we decided to rip up this carpet and start new. Who knew how hard that'd be!

Ripping up the old carpet wasn't hard. We found a nice solid sub-floor atop the concrete subfloor.
Anna and I went shopping at a local carpet seller/installer not far from the house. Since the subfloor is concrete we decided to go all out and buy some super thick (aka warm) carpet. The carpet was so long, we were a little nervous we wouldn't be able to clean it (allergies). We made a point to ask if there were any special care instructions , we were assured there weren't.

We got the carpet installed and it was amazing! You could lose your whole hand in it! We loved it! Eventually the time came to vacuum it. We have 3x vacuums (that seems like a lot for 2 people 'eh?). We tried the first 2 with nothing too exciting happening, except the long carpet bogged down the motors. When we tried the 3rd, thats the charm! We frayed our new carpet. D'oh, what a bummer!

Our installer was really understanding and offered to replace the carpet. We decided not to go with the same carpet (maybe we'd end up fraying it again). We went into the store and selected some new carpet and went home. The next day an apologetic sales associate called us and explained that we selected a different brand of carpet and we had to go select again to select the same brand. I was frustrated that we needed to select again. We went back in and selected some new samples to take home and try out. While we still had the new samples, we got a call and found out we could select any brand. Yippee, we really liked our initial re-selection and placed an order.

Not too long afterward the new carpet was installed, awesome! The new stuff was less thick but great. After that fresh new carpet feeling went away we noticed a distinct line parallel to a wall about 4 feet away. I gave the installer a call and they asked how we liked the carpet. To their credit they mentioned the line on the carpet and wanted to see if it was a problem for us. We decided it was a little to distinct for us. Turns out its rare, it usually only happens in large office installations, etc, but as the carpet is rolled out the color sometimes changes. Our rool is wider than a roll of carpet so they unroll one strip and then fill in the remainder with then next section off of the roll.

We eventually got the correct carpet installed, it fantastic! We also installed new outlets installed and new blinds installed. Voila, our new sun room!

Back to Neenah

[Monday Oct 29th]
After an exhausting commute around the planet we affectionately call Earth, I have made it back to Neenah. Thanks Tom for picking me up at the airport! So sleepy... Must stay awak sq;kjsbdlkqwc Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Japan and Yen

[Monday Oct 29th]
Well I made it to Japan, the flight was fast because I was zonked out the entire flight. I am flying on a new airline that I enever heard of before 'ANA'. So far so good. Now of it only had one more N...

Nothing too exciting going on here. I was walking around the airport looking for some shops to browse in. I found this really neat remote control plane in one of them. Its real small and meant to fly in doors. It was 4000 yen(￥) so I choked on that one. I thought to my self, "You better just keep shopping...". As I kept walking, I came across a vending machine. I hadn't found the lounge yet so I decided to check prices. Yikes, 120 yen(￥) for a Coke (which incidentally was in a very strange container)! That seems pricey. Well not having any yen on me I traveled on. I came across a money changer and gave him $5USD. In exchange I got 556 yen! I hit the jackpot, woot. So a yen is like a penny, I can handle that. Toy store, here I come ;)

Well off to the lounge to see if I can scrounge up a little food.
Take care everyone, I'll be back soon!

Happy Trails Penang

[Sunday Oct 28th]
Well this is it. My last day in Penang. (I know, I know, I need to update everyone on what I have done this past week but its been soo busy!) Hopefully I'll get a chance to post pictures and stories etc when I get back home.

Today I woke up at Jeff's place, ended up staying waaaay late... Also managed to get Jeff and I locked out on the ~21st floor balcony for about 30 minutes ;) Long story! I had a nice authentic McDs breakfast, thanks Jeff. Bruce and Angela treated me to one last Starbucks (mmm, Starbucks!) and some grub at TGIF... Hmmm, recurring theme here, think they are prepping me for getting back? Thanks guys! Mei Fong met me at the Penang Airport for one last stop at Nandos... Mmmm. Thanks!

Then the moment came, I left Penang. I met a professor from England (Cambridge) who specializes on the Placenta of all things. He's World renown for his research. His favorate, the cell that is the bridge from the mother and child. Amazing when you think about it. The child is 1/2 of the father. The body should reject it just like a transplanted organ from the father... But it doesn't. These cells are amazing. I'll leave it there but he got me interested!

Now I've made it to Singapore. In a few hours I depart Singapore for Tokyo, a few hours layover, then off to Chicago. I'll be back in Neenah around 11am on Monday.

Penang has been a fun, exciting, and rewarding expierence. I am glad I took the opportunity to live there. The people have been fastastic. More than willing to help, and also have shown me around. I really appreciate everyone who I've met and spent time with. The culture, the food, the enviroment has been great. So different than back home. It has really opened my eyes to new things and new thoughts.

South East Asia has been fun, some day I'll return and explore more. There is so much to see and do! Thus far its been great memories, great people, and great moments. And who can forget the 'engaging' experience!

Happy Trails Penang, until we meet again...
-Terry

Cantonese Movie

[Friday Oct 19th]
I went to go see a Cantonese movie Friday night. I thought it's be a fun and interesting thing to do. I've seen movies with subtitles before, but never in another country. Once we got in the theater, one of the people said that they didn't think the subtitles would be in English. Uh oh, thats no good for me. Usually the English movies are subtitled in Malay... This is in Cantonese, what will the Subtitles be in? I'm stuck, if they aren't in English, I commuted to the mall and didn't have a car to leave. It was 9pm so the mall would be closing too. Well I'm in for whatever comes! The previews weren;t subtitled, thats no good.

Finally the movie started and much to my relief, it had English subtitles! Whew! It had 3 different sets of subtitles! . The Movie was about some Brothers whose Dad was part of Hong Kong's business 'gangs'. It was actually quite good. The plot had some good twists and turns. The ending was a bit of a surprise but unfolded well.

There was scene in the movie that was actually *in* English. I didn't even realize that until the end of the scene and I was very surprised. I had been reading the subtitles the entire scene, d'oh! You get so used to the reading that it becomes subconscious, just like there was actually dialog you were hearing and understanding.

Anna Returns Home

[Friday Oct 19th]
Anna made it back to Neenah on her Thursday night. Her flight was delayed in Chicago. Does anything ever go through Chicago on time? ;) Debbie, who offered to pick Anna up from the Airport, was very nice and waited for Anna. Thanks Debbie!

Anna's Last Day

[Wednesday Oct 17th]
Well today's it. Anna's last day in Penang. We went to Kek Lok Si one last time, strolled through, its an impressive place. After that we drove to find the Reclining Buddha.

There are two Buddhist Temples here, right across the street from eachother. Both quite big and impressive. One of them has the 'World Famous' reclining Buddha, noted as the worlds largest reclining Buddha...

Also inside that temple are many other Buddha statues. We had our pictures taken if front of 'ours'. There was one for each Chinese Zodiac. Mine Being the Year of the Monkey and Anna the Year of the Ram/Goat/Sheep.

Not all the statues were simple or normal statues. There is a rare custom where certain individuals/monks, when they die, are placed into a large Egg-shaped capsule without any special treatment. After several years the capsule is opened and if the individual was pure, etc, they are preserved. A lengthly process is followed where the body is slowly repositioned. Then it is encased in layers of gold and becomes a statue. It is important to note that the individuals are not treated like mummies in Egypt, they are just put into one of these cases. I don't know what this is called so I can't point you to a reference...

We did a brief tour of both temples, brief because out time was running short. We started to head back to the apartment. I got lost driving, was fooled by signage. After some tense traffic, detours, unexpected site seeing, a deceptive map, and ending back up in Little India (this time in a ca, we finally made it back to a highway I knew. From there it was easy to make it back to the apartment. We ended up with plenty of time to finish packing, get prepared, and head to the airport.

We had dinner at Nando's at the airport and then Anna left to catch her plane.
Have a fun and safe trip, I Love you Anna!

War Musuem

[Tuesday Oct 16th]
Today we headed to the South East corner of the Island and visited the War Museum. The story of this place is interesting. They just found an old British base here around 2000. They've been cleaning it up, restoring it, and opened it as a musuem shortly there after. The grounds have been reclaimed quite nicely while keeping all the new forest growth present as well.

The British built a fort here in the 1930s. During WWII Penang was taken over by Japanese. Interestingly the day the Japanese attacked was December 8th 1941, the day after they attacked Pearl Harbor. Quite strange.

Alot of the commentary at the museum was dedicated to the WWII usage of the facility as a POW camp and of the atrocities that occurred there.

It was fun to walk around, walk through the underground bunkers and command centers. See the emergency escape routs. Walk where the huge guns used to sit (The British destroyed their armaments before giving up the Island). See the living quarters and cooking facilities. Read about how base life was before the war.

For you 'Lost' fans, you'll like this photo. Its looking down and escape hatch. Does it remind you of anything? It reminds us of 'The Hatch'. Makes us feel like John Locke...

Up and Around

[Monday Oct 15th]
Today's Adventure? Up the Northern Coast of the Island, through Batu Ferringhi, up around the North West corner, and back around circumnavigating the Island.

Our first stop was was Batu Ferringhi. Its a big tourist destination here on Penang. There are several hotels/resorts along the beach. On the beach there a are a bunch of operators with Jet-Ski, ATV, and Horse rentals. They also have parasailing. We opted out of these. I've seen a few too many parasailing crashes on the beach, and we all know how I faired the last time I had a parachute strapped to me ;) BTW, this is the place where they have the Batu Ferringhi night market, that's the 1km long market that we strolled through last week.

We pushed onward and made it to the Butterfly Park. This park is great. Its an enclosed area, like an aviary. There are thousands of butterflies just flying about. Tons of different species. When we first got there a bunch really mist have liked Anna's pink shirt. They swarmed her. After the first little bit though, they left her alone. They had several paths go go down and just be with the butterflies. There were little stand out where they had placed fruit or flowers for food for the butterflies. Seeing so many was just staggering.

Butterflies weren't the only things they had there. They had a pit of scorpions. They sure look ugly and nasty in person. Stay clear of these guys. They has some huge millipedes, nearly a foot long, yeech, no thanks! There was a big lizard, he was pretty cool. It was basically a big Iguana. He was right near the exotic bugs.

They had a few plants sitting out, you could walk right up and touch them if you wanted. They had them out because you could have a close encounter with some the the strangest bugs on the planet. These huge bugs have adapted to conceal themselves. Some as leaves, some as sticks, sum and I don't even know what. They're hard to spot at first because they are so well concealed. After you see them you don't know how you could have missed them. They are huge!

They had a pond, a waterfall, a bunch of overgrown Koi, and some ducks too. Now the ducks were amazingly beautiful. They were Mandarin Ducks, related to the Woodland Ducks of North American. These ducks has do much color, looked very ornate. Wisconsin should get some ;)

After or Butterfly tour, we headed to Taman Negara. Thats the national park on Penang, with the Trail to Monek Beach (remember the Monkey in the Coconut Mask?). We strolled around there, and walked out onto the Docks.

We hit the road and drove through the back country around the Western side of the Island. Most of the driver is through the mountains, winding narrow roads with great views. Very little of that part of the Island is inhabited.

Grandpa, you'll like this story ;) Near the end of our journey, we thought we'd take a detour and try and find an old fishing village. One of the old villages on stilts. We saw a green sign with Yellow lettering and thought that maybe it'd lead us there. Silly us. After about 20 minutes, getting off the main road. The road getting narrower. Parts of the road washed out, falling down to the sea below. There were a lot of 'AWAS' signs. Awas means Caution in Malay... We couldn't read the rest so we had no idea what to be cautious about. So we just kept going, naturally ;) I joked that we were probably on a road to some secret military base... We came to the end of the road. It was a gated end too. We stopped. At first we turned around but then we went back to see what we had discovered. I walked up to and through the gate. My glasses were fully fogged. I could hardly see. Before I knew it I was standing within a few feet of 3 guys just sitting around. I asked where we were and they were baffled. "What do you mean" they said. I said, "are we at a town, a village, what?". "You want town?" they asked. "No, we want to know where we are." He said a training facility... Hmm I though, what kind? So I asked. He said a Military training facility. With that, we left. It was just like several times with Grandpa, we'd drive up to a military base, such as Fort Knox, with the motor home. We'd get let in past the gates because we couldn't turn around and got to go in the base ;)

We made it back around the island and back to the apartment. No Military escort required ;)

Fish - Head and all

[Sunday Oct 14th]
Today we chilled at the Mall for a while. Chill is right, its got to be 65 degrees or less in there! Burr! As we were shopping around, we had to get a picture of Dave's Deli for Dave. Always an option Dave, if it works here in Malaysia, why not back home? ;)

The highlight of the day was actually the evening. We went out to dinner with Mei Fong and Mei Ying. They took us to Peninsular Malaysia to a Hawker like seafood place out in the middle of nowhere. Strangely on the way we passed a large stadium, on the scale of Camp Randall, that didn't really have any use! How strange. We kept driving and made it to our destination.

We've got a bunch of food pictures for ya! First off was drinks. Somehow without knowing it I was the only one who didn't get coconut! Not that you'd believe it in the picture but thats Watermelon Juice, and no its not Bitter. In front of us is Fried Calamari (Squid). Mmm, thats good stuff? What isn't good fried anyway?

MF and MY had ordered for us so we weren't sure what all was coming or how much. To us it was course after course, a never ending stream of food! After our Calamari we had the full fish... head, tail, fins, skin, and everything... That was really good. Just slide the meat right off the fish, oh so tender! That's not all, they had us try the fish cheeks too. They plopped them right out of the fish's face and yum, they were excellent. Who would have thought?

Next course? Crab! Mmm, Crab. Anna wasn't a fan but the rest of us were. The crab came with these Pink and white buns, they were great. Anna thought they were the best part of the meal!

Ahh, then came the clams. I'm not a clam fan unless they're fried, go figure. Anna though. She braved through the clams. I had to take some pictures of the event. Just look at those expressions! Priceless! I bet you wouldn't believe she just kept eating them 'eh?

Well we have a few more dishes (veggies, Rice, etc) and dinner was done. Not before Anna had some local cookie type thingy. Funny how they look just like a hat ;)

Turns out it was close to MF's B-Day so we got together at her place and had a cake. MF's Brother picked it up, apparently had a vendetta against Anna. We affectionately called the cake 'Anna Death Cake'. It was a cheesecake with several types of nuts and Apple pieces, yikes! Needless to say, Anna did without! That didn't stop us from have a great time chatting, laughing, having a good time.