My First Halloween...

today is halloween, a day that i personally don't celebrate. but now as a daddy to haley, cherie encourages me to take haley out to explore. so today before daylight disappears, we took haley out for the first time in her halloween costume given by one of her uncle, uncle ted and auntie june.

haley is sooo adorable in this bumble bee costume.

here's haley doing her "Oh-Nooooo" gesture.


haley bee is trying to take off flying..... see how concentrated and focused she is?


she's such a happy baby... and a silly one too!


love this pose... look at that bumble bee... she just might sting you! hehe


click here for more photos.

Quick Shots of Haley

here are some quick photos of haley that was shot by me using our Canon Powershot SD750 point and shoot camera. who would've thought with a bit of editing, the photos would come out that great.

here are some photos of haley playing in the sunflower field next to some pumpkins...



isn't haley growing up sooo tall?


up close photos of haley picking the sunflower leaf..

Haley's First Pumpkin Patch

it's been a while since i last posted. i've been lazy.. and i can totally see my blog starting to collect cob webs, which i suppose is ok, since it's nearing halloween.

here are some photos of haley's first visit to a pumpkin patch. in case if ya'll don't know what a pumpkin patch is... well, it's basically a pumpkin farm. every year before halloween comes around, the farm will open up to the public for everyone to come and enjoy. it's kind of like thanksgiving, where the tradition is, after the thanksgiving lunch, the whole family will go out afterwards to pick up a christmas tree.

similar to that, you can bring kids to the pumpkin patch to pick out different types, colors and sizes of pumpkin to take home and carve into a jack-o-lantern. we had a lot of fun that day, because it was also the first time for cherie to visit the pumpkin patch as well. it was a very fun day with the family and my canon 30D. the only complaint was that we didn't bring enough cash to bring home a pumpkin and the weather was just too hot. at least we brought just enough money for parking, which was $3. thank God! otherwise, it would have been horrible trying to back out of the parking lot, when there's tons of cars waiting behind us.

2nd day after haley turns 14 month old.. her first photo with pumpkins. she's such a happy baby!


it got too hot, so cherie gave haley her hat to wear. see how haley is trying to steal that pumpkin?
doesn't haley look like a pirate!! AUGRRRR~~


ah... more pumpkins to pick and choose from. see that small pumpkin on the right side in the middle of the hay field? well, that's the pumpkin she took from another isle and now leaving it there to take others. haha..


here's the two beautiful ladies in my life... haley and her mommy, cherie.


there's more photos listed here if you want to see more. please click here.
all was taken by me... the master photographer.. LOL...

Tennis runs in the family...

recently, my doctor told me that my cholesterol is too high. more like 235 to be exact. so besides trying to eat more healthy and walking 30mins daily during lunch, i am also trying to do some exercise.

i come from a family that plays tennis, dad is a great tennis player, mom use to play before her knee injury. i use to play tennis a lot like crazy back when i was in high school. but then again, there wasn't much to do in Houston, besides tennis, fishing or watching TV. so i a tennis freak. since then, i rarely picked up a racket or a game or two, just seldom.

starting from last week, i started to play tennis with one of our friends, whom is very much into tennis. this week, we met up for our weekly tennis on sunday and today, cherie and haley came with us to the courts.

while i was playing tennis, haley was having so much fun running into the courts with a tennis ball. she was our offical ball girl.

later on, she went into my bag and start to pick up a racket and swing around. don't forget, this girl is only 13 months and 10 days old.

Ever met a famous person?

recently, i just came back from a business trip in boston, ma.

on my flight back from boston to new york, i took the airline JetBlue. there was this very neatly dressed business man sitting by the window seat next to me. he seemed very anxious and was constantly looking at his iphone and checking his emails, browsing the web, etc. probably because the flight got delayed by 40 mins or so.

i couldn't help but to noticed there's something special about him but in a good way.

during the 55 min flight, i was so bombed from the boston esc show, i decided take a quick nap. just when the flight was about the land, i woke up and turned on my android phone, G2 phone the MyTouch 3G.

that's when our conversation started. he asked how i liked using the android phone and i told him the pros and cons as well as how it compares to the iphone. so our conversation started to take off and i started talking a bit technical. as a sales person, i can always tell when someone was starting to lose interest in the subject, so i quickly change the topic. he then got curious and asked what i do for a living, so i replied "semiconductor related or more specifically SSD for industrial and embedded application".

he then said "no wonder you seem technical when you talk, kinda have to for your line of work." i admit, i'm a total nerd when it comes to techie stuff.

so then i asked what kind of industry he's in, and he simply replied "software" or more specifically something to do with downloading music from the web.

right then and there my gut feeling shot out of my mouth and said "NAPSTER"? needless to say, John was very shocked and surprised to hear that. Immediately, he asked for my business card and gave me his.

the famous person that sat next to me on the plane whom i had the pleasure of speaking to about technologies in cell phones is John Fanning, the original Founder and CEO of NAPSTER! HOLY COW!!

what's awesome was right afterward we exited the plane, John took off running to get to his next meeting as I wished him good luck on a great meeting, he turned around and said thanks.

after that, a couple ppl walked up to me and asked me did that guy just said he's the founder/ CEO of Napster? i proudly said yup and showed them his business card. after which, the only words coming out of their mouths was "HOLY SHIT"!

never thought what it would be like to meet a famous person and yet all this time, i thought he was just a regular joe like me. even as a millionaire, John is a very down to earth guy and very humble. i wish him the very best of luck...

It's been 2 wks... Chloe with IVDD

it's been exactly 2 wks since chloe had IVDD. although we are very optimistic about her speedy recovery, but still in the shadowed corner in the back of our heads, we still need to face the reality that maybe, just maybe, chloe may never fully walk again.

till today, chloe's able to wag her tail when she's happy, bark when she's anxious, cry when she wants her daddy's attention, and still can eat like a horse.

she's been able to move her legs a bit these days, which seems to mean that there's more sensitivity going on in her hind legs. but still not much reflex from her paws. normal dogs when you bend their paws back when they are standing up, they will automatically flip it back. but chloe can not fully do that. only from time to time.

but still, we are hopeful. so, please continue to pray for chloe's speedy recovery.

here's a video of chloe taking her first walk outside of her crib. we needed to make a video for a wheelchair company in taiwan to see, so they can assess chloe's condition for which type of wheelchair.

be warned, this is a very heartbreaking video. i hope no doggie parent would and should ever have to go through this. therefore, if you have a big doggie or even a doggie with longer body, please watch their weight and prevent them from jumping up and down or climbing the stairs.

CHLOE 加油! 加油! 加油!

Chloe's Road to Recovery - Day 1

last night on 7/28/09, chloe started to feel funny after our dinner walk. we thought chloe must've accidently ate a hot pepper from our subway sandwich or something. chloe kept on pacing around and around, resting very uneasy.

by 11pm that night, haley was crying as usual, since she has been teething. but chloe was still very restless, as if something is wrong, but don't know what it is. then at 3am in the morning, haley cried again and chloe wanted to come down from the bed. i picked her up and put her down and she just walked into haley's room to check on her.

after that, i was afraid that chloe might bark and woke up haley, so i took her downstairs to sleep with me on the futon. when we got downstairs, chloe still didn't want to sleep with me on the futon, which was very unusual. so i decided to let chloe walk around downstairs as she please while i get some sleep.

by 7am, my alarm rang and i was getting ready to go to work. when i saw chloe laying down, i went to check on her. chloe was happy to see me, but when she stood up and tried to walk, that's when my heart was shattered into billions of pieces.

chloe was dragging her hind legs on the floor. chloe has lost control of her hind legs and tail movements.

i knew one of these days it will happen to dachshunds because most of them will have IVDD (Intervertebral disc disease). however, never in a million year would i think it would happen to chloe that early on in her life.

that day, i decided to take the whole week off and took chloe into the vet to have a check up. the vet gave us three choices:

1) take her to specialist for evaluation if surgery would help or not. if yes, it would cost around US$5000 - $6000 and the chance of recovery is 50%-60% max.

2) take the non-surgurcal method, which is pain medication with steroids. then crate resting for 6-8 wks to see if she can heal herself.

3) let her go and put her to sleep.

for us, the choice was very simple. we decided to go for #2. we love chloe dearly but if the surgery could guarantee at least 80% chance, i would go in debt for her. but after reading some reviews of doxie owners, it seems that most went through surgury, eventually have other disc move out of place.

as for #3, we would not choose that. it would be like seeing your loved ones get injured and paralyzed from the waist down and must rely on a wheelchair, but you decided to put them to sleep instead.

chloe is still a very healthy and happy dachshund. just today after the visit from the vet, she kept crying and licking her hind legs while looking at me with her round eyes asking:

"daddy, what's wrong with me? how come i can't move my legs anymore?"

don't worry baby.. mommy and daddy and haley will not give up on you. so you need to fight, fight, fight and get better soon. when you are all much better, daddy will get you a wheelchair and we can go to carmel again.

to all my readers: a simple request... please pray for chloe's speedy recovery and keep her in your daily prayers. God Bless..