SG50 The Fighter Jets Fly By ECP Expressway

Date:  Aug 9, 2015

While we driving home.  It was 12 noon when we on the ECP Expressway.

There is a fighter jet flying in the sky.

So, we hazard light our car, and investigate.

Kay: “Is Singapore under attack?"

Where have they fly to?  Where is it?

Here it comes again.  Four fighter jets doing the twisted moves.

Here comes Larry Leong.  Our friend who is going to drive across 15 countries form Singapore to London in 66 days in his Land Rovers, with his wife Simone, and their daughter Lucy.  I think Lucy is only 5 years old.  And the plan is, 50 years later, hopefully Lucy will do another long Land Rover trip to celebrate SG100.

What do you know?  The four fighter jets came to see them off too.

A convoy of 52 Land Rovers will escort Larry’s car to Tuas check point where he will joined with other Malaysia drivers, about 15 of them to embark this wonderful journey.

The sky is not that good.  But good enough for us to see the LOVE shape the fighter jets make.

The kids really love it.  They don’t like the sun though.

Let’s do selfie.  or Wefie.

Happy Birthday Singapore.  In front of us.

Happy SG50.  Behind us.

2013 Spring Growing in the Aquaponic System

Well, its been awhile since my last post, but Ive been busy during the winter. After 18 months of fish waste buildup in the gravel growbeds I had the misfortune of major clogging in the beds with fish waste at the end of December. Two of my grow beds clogged completely, causing them to overflow and draining two of the fish tanks overnight.  I only had about 4"-6" of water in each tank,  but thankfully I didnt lose any fish, but due to the extreme cold of the water(approx. 45 degrees), it took me several days to fill the tanks back up. I had to add water and wait for it to heat up over a day, then add more, and on and on until both were full. I then took on the task of cleaning the growbeds, this took approx. 7 full days over a two to three week period in January, in the cold. It wasnt any fun, since I only had a five gallon bucket with holes in the bottom covered with mesh and a high pressure hose nozzle on a garden hose. I could only wash about three gallons of gravel at a time. It was painstaking, back breaking work, and cleaning 400 gallons of gravel should not be taken lightly, but it paid off in the end. Unfortunately, I had contracted the flu while doing this in temps that hovered in the 30-40 degree range and I paid for it afterwards.

I had  to remove all 40 tomato plants and most of the basil and mint from the beds, everything else had been choked out by the basil and tomato plants prior to the clogging. I was able to salvage a few pieces of mint and a few basil plants, but everything else was tossed out. I replanted 6 weeks ago and you can see from the video that cleaning the gravel beds was well worth the effort.

Enjoy...and keep on growing.

RIP Molly

Date:  July 27, 2015

I was going to toilet the other day in the morning.  

And I saw the most terrifying things.

A cockroach.

A huge cockroach is moving inside my toilet.

And it suddenly struck me!

By the way, Molly passed away last Sunday (July 19).

For those who does not know, Molly is a pure breed ragdoll from Australia.

And she has been with us for 14 years.

This is what he looks like 14 years ago.

A fun, little cat.  

This was shot on July 19, 2001.  When we first got the cat across the street from a pet shop in Holland Village.

My home does not have cockroach problem for so many years.  The two cats has done a great job to make cockroach and lizards stay away from our home.

Mel Mel (a local Tonkinese cat) passed away 3 years ago.  And now, Molly follow him. 

Sometimes, they also play with the Ants.  (Sorry Antman!)  She actually squashed the ants on the floor.  

Very fun cat.  

So, after she has gone.

Last Tuesday, I saw a cockroach.

Last Saturday, the ants storms my sweet mangosteen.

And yesterday, an ugly lizard jumped onto our dining table.  

So, I think we need some help.  We need the cat power again to help us keep all these bad cockroach, lizards away.

At the mean time… R.I.P. Molly.  We will miss you. 

First Time in a Indian Barber Shop

Date:  Feb 7, 2016

I think this is the fist time the kids has entered an Indian barber shop.  

This shop is conveniently located just beside Grandpas stationary shop.

Kay Kay is such an adorable kid.  Ask him to pretend crying, he pretend crying.

Looks so real.  Hahahaha. But yet fake fake.  Hahaha

Actually there isnt a lot of different cutting hair in Singapore or Malaysia.  Well, to the parents, Singapore cutting hair around this time, before CNY may be cost more (double), or fix price for those budget cut.  But cutting hair in the barber shop in Malaysia, especially this shop cost only RM$4 only.

Wow...

Also, for the first time, Kay Kay saw how the barber shave his hair off his skin using the blade.  Wwahahahahaha

Hold still, dont move!

Because his school starts Wednesday, and we ran out of time to bring him to cut hair, so we let him cut the hair here at the barber shop.

Not that bad, Depan tak boleh touch n go eye brow, sebelah tak boleh touch n go the ear.... Not bad!

Here is Jay Jays turn to cut hair too.

After the hair cut, looks fresh and good!

Happy Chinese New Year!

IBC Tote tanks continued

Alright, I have placed the last two tote tanks and configured them like the ones in the previous post without any issues. After measuring the standpipes  and bell housing, I had to cut them down by 1-1/2" to get the water level down to 10" in the growbeds which would allow for 12" deep grow media. I also added some drain holes to the outside perf pipe and covered them with fiberglass screening to allow for better water penetration into the siphon, without this I would get a premature siphon break half way through the cycle with substrate in place. Next, I ordered two 950 GPH magnetic drive pumps from a seller on eBay at a huge discount. I basically picked both units up for the price of one. These have been installed and a working as planned.

I also ordered a commercial air pump for use in the tanks with a 6 way control valve assembly and four 18" air stones. This unit puts out 45Liters per Hour which is more than enough for the 1100 Gallons of water I have in the fish tanks. It took about 30ft of 1/8" tubing extended to all tanks to get this in place.

 I also built a small shelf to house the unit and valve assembly. I had to bolt the air pump down to the shelf so it didnt vibrate around and fall off.

I have added 20 feeder gold fish to the tanks (5 for each tank) to start the nitrogen cycle process. I have had a few die off due to stress so I will be adding more as time permits.

Next its on to the growbed media.....

Apple Watch Vs Pebble Time

Date:  June 26, 2015

I am so sorry Pebble Time!

Really really sorry!

At first, I thought the long battery life of Pebble Time will make me wear it.

It is a Kickstarter project.  It was a very ambitious project.

It has the ability to change clock watch face.  It sounds so good.

But the realistic fact are:

1) It is always dim like this.  It is like wanted to show you something, but you know it is there, but you can see it clearly.  So, overtime, what you do is to press a button to light it up.

That is very bad design.

The Color E-Ink does give you the color, but still it needed to be in power safe mode.  Unlink Apple Watch, the give you blank screen.  And when you need to see it, flip your wrist a little.  And the full screen comes up.

1-0 winners goes to Apple.

2) Look at the packaging.

Wow.  That’s it.  Come on, you are a watch.  Please come in with better or nicer package.  You give a good box, at least people will keep the watch safe in the box.  But it is a delivery box, which is a also a watch box, that cannot be locked or covered properly.

2-0 apple Watch win the packaging.

3.  No Chinese?

Wow.  That is the first.

It suppose to be a smart watch.

There are way that you can change the language into Chinese.  But that means the whole OS is Chinese.

When SMS or WhatsApp arrived, it is a standard Chinese characters.  Why you can’t display them?  Strange?

3-0 Apple wins again.

4.  And the Interface is Button driven.

So, press the middle button to bring up the Apps menu.  Press up button to go up, press down button to go down, press the middle button to confirm.  

Wow… It actually sucks.  I did not expect this.

Also, there is no touch screen.

No Siri to talk to too!

4-0 Apple wins again.

OK.  To be fair for Pebble Time, they win the battery long life game as well as the price.  So 4-2 Apple win.

I think the biggest mistake is, my Apple Watch come in delivered way before the Pebble Time watch arrived.  So, it could be different if I see Pebble Watch first and might gave a very fair comment about it.  But then, this is fate, my Apple Watch comes right before the Pebble Watch.  And the Apple Watch has been on my wrist for almost 3 weeks.  And I am still wearing it without fail.  Where is my Fitbit Charge HR?  Well, sitting there doing nothing.  HaHaHaHa

The color of the screen, the ease of use of the interface, the notifications delivered in a way which is non intrusive to me (my opinion).  I get to see my phone lesser.  But Apple Watch is still a great product compare to the Pebble Time watch.  No doubt about it.

Sorry!  Pebble Time!

 

Time Lapse plants

Heres a time-lapsed video of my greenhouse aquaponics transformation. Sorry about the changes in the camera angles and the lighting variations - its a really crappy webcam. The last frame does have less plants in it since I just ripped out all the beans and started a new batch. I think I may get three growing "seasons" of beans this year.

Harvest Time

Well good start to the day. We cut some of our Morning Glory ready for a stir fry.  Our little system is doing really well. Seems to have stabilized and even go the syphons to the grow beds working much better. Makes me feel I am learning bit by bit.

Time to plant for seedlings

OK...so Im a little late on planting my seedlings due to other domestic obligations ...anyway, I have picked up some seedling trays from Amazon that are being used to start my seedlings. I tried using white grow cubes on my bell peppers in the past, which sprouted fine, but did not allow for enough oxygen to the roots and too much water causing rot. This time around Im using peat moss. I have to pack each seed cell in the tray with peat moss, which should provide a good foundation for the roots. I am using a combination of rain water and FT water to sprout the seeds.  Hopefully, the greenhouse will provide enough light for stronger growing plants. I am growing two varieties of cucumbers, three different types of tomatoes, some heirloom, along with kale, lettuce, squash, etc. etc. etc. Once the sprouts are large enough, tomatoes will be placed in the media grow beds, along with the cucumbers while most of the rest will go into the DWC rafts once completed.

Things we do to pass the time in winter

There isnt a lot of gardening to do in this time of year when the highs are in the low 20s....

In the backyard, we like to set up a 45x80 skating rink each year. I made up this Zamboni ice resurfacing machine to keep the rink nice and smooth.

Ive also included a link to a video of it in action!

Click here to view

Water Testing and System Review

Took some water samples today.  Looking good. (See side bar for details).

System appears very stable with 7 fish in clean water and plenty of veggies in the grow beds.

Ive also checked the circulation volume, can do it from pump data but also checked with just simply collecting the output to each tank for 30 secs each. Throughput added up to exactly 2 litres for 30 seconds. Thats 4 litres a minute so 240 litres an hour. Tank volume is near 180 litres so an exchange rate of every 45 minutes. Very acceptable. If anything a bit on the fast side. But Ill stick go with the pump system Ive got. You know the expression, "if it aint broke dont fix it".