Garage Sale

I have accumulated quite a bit of stuff in the past 17 years in the US. I decided I needed to start getting rid of the 'lee lee kok kok' (translation: miscellaneous) stuff before my move. Originally, I thought I could bring many of my electronic items over but Chris informed me that Australia was on a 240v power (vs. 110v in the US/Taiwan).....!!!! Argh...which means, most of the electronics that do not accommodate the dual voltage had to go. I dug around my kitchen and found quite a bit of electronic items like: rice cooker, electrical hotpot, George Foreman grill, food dehydrator, juicer, etc.... Hehe, luckily, I can offload some of those to Cynthia so she could make use of it. Others would have be to sold. I also rummaged around my storage and found an assortment of things to sell as well - first gen Playstation plus dancing pads, roller blades, extra chair/stools, etc.

My friends had a block sale (their entire block of neighbors coordinated to have garage sales) this past weekend and they were nice to set up a big long table on their lawn just for my things. The garage sale was scheduled for 8am but I was told that people start coming in super early around 7:30ish to scout out the best things. I got there around 6:45am to setup and before I could properly price my items, people started dropping by and asking how much this and that was. Since this was my first garage sale, I didn't have a clue how to properly price my things but luckily my friends were there to help me out. The most expensive item I priced was $20 for the food dehydrator which no one wanted to buy. (FYI: food dehydrator is for drying out food to make things like dried fruit.) Other things ranged from 25 cents to $5. Garage sale hunters are typically there for the bargains and bargain they did! Despite all the bargain prices, I still netted $130! I was quite happy with the outcome since if I hadn't sold those things, I would have eventually had to donate it. Glad to see at least some people can feel like they got a bargain and benefit from the stuff that's been in hiding for 2+ years and I get some extra cash! :)




The stuff on the lawn are all my stuff to be sold.

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Bay Area Adventures Video

Bay Area Adventures, California from Christopher Chan

This is a compilation video of all our activities in the Bay Area over three weeks while I was there visiting Yvonne. It has a lot of yet unseen footage of Yvonne's antics (ok and mine as well). :)

If you want to watch this video in full HD quality, you should watch the video directly on the Vimeo website. This does require a fast Internet connection.

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Chatswood Rainbow

It's been raining in Sydney all this week but we finally had some sun today and this brilliant rainbow appeared. This photo was taken from my balcony looking into the heart of Chatswood.
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Pinnacles National Monument Video

Pinnacles National Monument, California from Christopher Chan.

A video of our hike through the Pinnacles National Monument with two of Yvonne's friends.

If you want to watch this video in full HD quality, you should watch the video directly on the Vimeo website. This does require a fast Internet connection.

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The Improv

Yvonne and I attended a comedy show at San Jose's The Improv theatre. It was the first comedy show that both of us have been to. The star of the show was Steve Byrne, an Irish-Korean comedian.


As we were one of the first to arrive at the theatre, we were ushered to a very good table near the front of the stage. We started off the evening with dinner which was mediocre but we weren't there for the dinner. An hour later, the show started with a couple of warm up acts which were pretty good. Steve Byrne came on for the last hour of the show and he was quite funny.

The trouble started near the end of his show. Steve decided to call for "volunteers" to join him on stage for an act. Being seated near the front of the stage, I was the first "volunteer" he picked on and summoned on the stage. Luckily for me, there were another five or six guys that he picked. Whew !!


But just as I thought my worst fears were over, I found out what he wanted us to do on stage. Dance. Steve's idea was that he wanted to start a boy band and wanted to train us up with some moves. So we have to follow along and needless to say we generally made fools of ourselves.

But he had more in store for us than dancing as a group. Once that was over, he decided that he wanted each of us to do a solo dance. I nearly fainted at this stage. I was the second last person in line to do this. But as luck would have it, the guy in front of me was a accomplished dancer and he had a pretty amazing set of moves which he confidently displayed on stage. How do I follow up with that performance ?

When it came to my turn to do the solo, I scampered forward, did my jig as quickly as I could and dashed back in line. Steve was apparently unsatisfied with my meagre performance and demanded that I re-do it. As if I wasn't embarassed enough as it was, I had to go out and do it again !!

This entire time, Yvonne was sitting in the front row enjoying my obvious embarassment on stage. Not only that, she even broke the rules of the theatre and filmed the entire segment.


I have to say it was a memorable evening but one important lesson learned is to never sit in the front row when it comes to comedy shows. Best to hide somewhere dark near the back.
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