Stock - yes, my Genting shares are hanging tough hehe. For the rest eg Ezra, St James, Magnus and Memtech are still "dead" in the water. FiberChem...no news! Well,
just got to cheer Genting on then...to make up for the rest for the moment.
For forex, yes I have started to write a journal for my trades win or lose. For Monday, didn't do much....but did enter some trades on Tuesday and kena stopped out!
Well....just small trades so small losses, just push my fund to less than 30% of the original amount. Have already sent my checks to top-up the fund....should be ready by tomorrow for trading.
Wah...this GBPCHF, USDCHF and USDJPY pairs really gave me a big headache. Still down after hitting their multi-years' low last week. MAN....while EURUSD and AUDUSD are hitting their high for the moment!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Today....I was happy to witness 2 great events.
First....the rescue of the 33 miners in Chile and can see the joy and reliefs when the 1st miner was out of the mine. I too was crying tears of joy when their stories were reported. I was following the whole thing on CNN and BBC....in fact, most of the news were reporting about the event even CCTV in China. The powerful thing is that they were in the mine for 68 days and yet...they are so orderly. That takes great discipline and will to live!!! I can understand what they went thru esp the inital 16 days when they were trapped and no one knew for sure if they were alive! The truth was that most people on the ground were saying it was not possible that they can last so long. Yes....God must be a Chilean!!! Yes also...for the Chilean people and their leaders, they are something!!! I am very happy to witness this event esp after what Chile has gone thru early this year, the earthquake! This does made me believe that there is God and if one is to pray hard enough....nothing is impossible!
See story as followed :
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile – The miners who spent 69 agonizing days deep under the Chilean earth were hoisted one by one to freedom Wednesday, their rescue moving with remarkable speed while their countrymen erupted in cheers and the world watched transfixed.
Beginning at midnight and sometimes as quickly as once every 40 minutes, the men climbed into a slender cage nearly a half-mile underground and made a smooth ascent into fresh air. By early afternoon, more than half the men — 17 of 33 — had been rescued.
In a meticulously planned operation, they were monitored by video on the way up for any sign of panic. They had oxygen masks, dark glasses to protect their eyes from unfamiliar daylight and sweaters for the jarring climate change, subterranean swelter to the chillier air above.
They emerged looking healthier than many had expected and even clean-shaven, and at least one, Mario Sepulveda, the second to taste freedom, bounded out and thrust a fist upward like a prizefighter.
"I think I had extraordinary luck. I was with God and with the devil. And I reached out for God," he said as he awaited the air force helicopter ride to a nearby hospital where all the miners were to spend 48 hours under medical observation.
The operation moved past the halfway point with the rescue of the 17th miner, a 56-year-old electrician named Omar Reygadas who helped organized life underground. His fourth great-grandchild was born a month after the men were sealed into the mine's lower reaches by an Aug. 5 collapse of 700,000 tons of rock.
As it traveled down and up, down and up, the rescue capsule was not rotating as much inside the 2,041-foot escape shaft as officials expected, allowing for faster trips, and officials said the operation could be complete by sunrise Thursday, if not sooner.
The anxiety that had accompanied the careful final days of preparation broke at 12:11 a.m., with the first rescue — Florencio Avalos, who emerged from the missile-like chamber and smiled broadly after his half-mile journey. He hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son and wife and then President Sebastian Pinera, who has been deeply involved in an effort that had become a matter of national pride.
Avalos was followed an hour later by the most ebullient of the group, Sepulveda, whose shouts were heard even before the capsule peeked above the surface. He hugged his wife and handed out souvenir rocks from the mine to laughing rescuers.
No one in recorded history has survived as long trapped underground as the 33 men. For the first 17 days, no one even knew whether they were alive. In the weeks that followed, the world was captivated by their endurance and unity.
Health Minister Jaime Manalich told a news conference after eight miners were rescued that all of them were in good health, and none has required any special medication, not even the diabetic among them.
Chile exploded in joy and relief at the first, breakthrough rescue just after midnight in the coastal Atacama desert.
In the capital, Santiago, a cacophony of car horns sounded. In the nearby regional capital of Copiapo, from which 24 of the miners hail, the mayor canceled school so parents and children could "watch the rescue in the warmth of the home."
News channels from North America to Europe and the Middle East carried live coverage. Pope Benedict XVI said in Spanish that he "continues with hope to entrust to God's goodness" the fate of the men. Iran's state English-language Press TV followed events live until President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touched down in Lebanon on his first state visit there.
The images beamed worldwide were extraordinary: Grainy footage from beneath the earth showed each miner climbing into the 13-foot-tall capsule, then disappearing upward through an opening. Then a camera showed the pod steadily rising through the dark, smooth-walled tunnel.
After the fifth miner made his ascent — 19-year-old Jimmy Sanchez, the youngest and the father of a months-old baby — the rescuers paused to lubricate the spring-loaded wheels that gave the capsule a smooth ride through the shaft, then resumed the rescues.
The ninth, Mario Gomez, who at 63 is the oldest miner, dropped to his knees after he emerged, bowed his head in prayer and clutched the Chilean flag. His wife, Liliane Ramirez, pulled him up from the ground and embraced him.
Gomez is most experienced of the group, first entering a mine shaft to labor at age 12, and suffers from silicosis, a lung disease common to miners. He has been on antibiotics and bronchial inflammation medicine. Manalich said Gomez came up with a special oxygen mask.
The lone foreigner among the miners, Carlos Mamani of Bolivia, was visited at a nearby clinic by Pinera and Bolivian President Evo Morales. The miner could be heard telling the Chilean president how nice it was to breathe fresh air and see the stars.
Most of the men emerged clean-shaven. Crews had lowered packages dubbed "palomas," Spanish for carrier pigeons, to get food and medicine to the men during their weeks underground, and in the days before rescue they were sent razors and shaving cream.
The entire rescue operation was meticulously choreographed, with no expense spared in bringing in topflight drillers and equipment — and boring three separate holes into the copper and gold mine.
Mining is Chile's lifeblood, providing 40 percent of state earnings, and Pinera put his mining minister and the operations chief of state-owned Codelco, the country's biggest company, in charge of the rescue.
It went so well that its managers abandoned what a legion of journalists had deemed an ultraconservative plan for restricting images of the rescue. A huge Chilean flag that was to obscure the hole from view was moved aside so the hundreds of cameras perched on a hill above could record images that state TV also fed live.
That included the surreal moment when the capsule dropped for the first time into the chamber, where the bare-chested miners, most stripped down to shorts because of the underground heat, mobbed the rescuer who emerged to serve as their guide to freedom.
"This rescue operation has been so marvelous, so clean, so emotional that there was no reason not to allow the eyes of the world — which have been watching this operation so closely — to see it," a beaming Pinera told a news conference after Avalos was brought to the surface.
Avalos, the 31-year-old second-in-command of the miners, was chosen to be first out because he was in the best condition. When the capsule came out of the manhole-sized opening, Avalos stepped out as bystanders cheered, clapped and broke into a chant of the country's name — "Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le!"
The next three men out, including Mamani of Bolivia, followed because they were deemed the fittest of body and mind. The 10 to follow included miners with health problems such as high blood pressure, diabetes and skin ulcers.
The operation started just before midnight, when a Codelco rescuer made the sign of the cross and was lowered to the trapped men. A navy paramedic went down after Avalos came up — a surprise improvisation as officials had said the two would go down to oversee the miners' ascent before the first went up.
The last miner was slated to be shift foreman Luis Urzua, whose leadership was credited with helping the men endure the first two and a half weeks without outside contact. The men made 48 hours' worth of rations last before rescuers reached them with a narrow bore hole to send down more food.
Janette Marin, sister-in-law of miner Dario Segovia, said the order of rescue didn't matter.
"This won't be a success unless they all get out," she said.
Chilean officials played down the risks of the rescue.
Panic attacks during the ascent, they said, were the biggest concern. The miners were not sedated — they needed to be alert in case something went awry. Manalich said rescuers could accelerate the capsule to its maximum speed of 3 meters per second if necessary.
Rescue coordinator Andre Sougarett told The Associated Press beforehand that the worst technical problem would be the possibility that "a rock could fall" and jam the capsule in the shaft.
But Davitt McAteer, who directed the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration, said there were many risks: A miner could get claustrophobic and somehow jam the capsule, the cable could get hung up, or the rig that pulls the cable could overheat.
"You can be good and you can be lucky. And they've been good and lucky," McAteer told the AP just before the operation commenced. "Knock on wood that this luck holds out for the next 33 hours."
The CEO of the Austrian company that made the capsule's winch and pulley system said there was no danger of the motor overheating because the winch was not working under maximum capacity.
Mining Minister Laurence Golborne, whose management of the crisis has made him a media star in Chile, insisted all risks had been considered.
"There is no need to try to start guessing what could go wrong. We have done that job," Golborne said. "We have hundreds of different contingencies."
McAteer said he gave "very high marks" to the Chileans for creating lowered expectations by saying that it might take until Christmas to rescue the men — and then consistently delivering results ahead of schedule.
"Second, they have had very few technical problems," he said.
Three rescue capsules were built by Chilean navy engineers, named Phoenix for the mythical bird that rises from ashes and painted in the white, blue and red of the national flag. Only one has been used in the rescue.
The miners' vital signs were closely monitored throughout the ride. They were given a high-calorie liquid diet donated by NASA, designed to prevent nausea from any rotation of the capsule as it travels through curves in the 28-inch-diameter escape hole.
Engineers inserted steel piping at the top of the shaft, which is angled 11 degrees off vertical before plunging like a waterfall.
Drillers had to curve the shaft to pass through "virgin" rock, narrowly avoiding collapsed areas and underground open spaces in the overexploited mine, which had operated since 1885.
At the regional hospital in Copiapo, two floors were prepared for the miners to be evaluated.
Then the second one....is about the armless pianist in China who went on to win the China Got Talent contest. Wow...me with 2 good arms and legs can't even think of doing 5% of what he have achieved. Yes....play the piano, and can swim well too. For this young man....it takes great discipline and will to live life to the fullest.
See story....
October 12, 2010 : If you think that the piano can be played only by hand, then you should certainly meet Liu Wei. Liu Wei is perhaps the World's best armless pianist.
Liu Wei lost his arms at the age of 10 when he was accidentally electrocuted while playing a game of hide and seek. Liu, a resident of Beijing taught himself to play the piano when he was 18 and has been practicing regularly ever since. For his final performance, Liu performed the song "You're Beautiful" all the while, singing and playing the piano with his feet.
"I really do not care how people regard me. It is enough for me to do the things I like. When other people express their regret and sorrow because I lost both arms, I can tell them confidently that I have perfect feet," he said.
Liu lost his arms when he was 10 after touching a high-voltage wire during a game of hide-and-seek.
At the time he dreamed of becoming a soccer player. He was encouraged by Liu Jingshen, vice-chairman of the Beijing Disabled Persons' Federation, to do daily chores with his feet and started swimming two years later. He won two gold medals and one silver at the National Swimming Championship for the Disabled in 2002.
By the age of 19, Liu had taught himself how to play the piano with his feet and started composing and producing music, practicing more than seven hours every day.
One year later, he was given the chance to work with the famous Hong Kong pop star Andy Lau and they composed the song Let It Be.
"Music is like water and air to me. I can't live without it," Liu Wei has said.
The jury panel of China's Got Talent, Shanghai stand-up comedian Zhou Libo, Taiwan singer-actress Annie Yi and mainland pop composer Gao Xiaosong, all praised Liu's performance.
"We all fought for our dreams when we were young, but no one has fought as hard as you," Gao said at one of the auditions.
"You tell us that to realize our dreams, we need to spare no pain," Yi said.
"There are only two options for the rest of my life: die as soon as possible or live life loud," Liu said during one show, inspiring thousands of people across China.
Liu moved the audience in the stadium and TV viewers when he said "at least I have a pair of perfect legs", according to the report.
Liu started playing the piano at 19 to pursue his childhood dream of being a musician. His first teacher quit because he thought it was impossible for someone to play with their toes, the newspaper said previously.
But Liu, who was studying music theory, persisted and taught himself in secret how to play, creating his own technique.
At the ceremony on Sunday, Liu was invited by Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai to be a guest performer during her overseas tour. The report said he may also receive a performance contract, without elaborating.
Looking at the two events....it does give me "hope" that I can do whatever I set my mind to do and have the will-power to follow thru the action plan. Frankly...the easiest thing for me to do is to lay down and wait for a hopeless death, esp with just thinking of the road ahead for me....is kind of blocked with not much hope. Now with these 2 events today....I should kick myself to get out of this "mind trap" and do whatever needed to live my life meaningfully. Don't wait for hopeless things to happen....when in my heart, I already know that it's time to move on and to let go all the wishful thinking!
Yes....I will do my best after my present job end to master Forex plus go all out with the insurance thingy! If that doesn't work....then it is alright to lay down and die! In doing so.....I would know I done my best and it's time to let go!
See story as followed :
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile – The miners who spent 69 agonizing days deep under the Chilean earth were hoisted one by one to freedom Wednesday, their rescue moving with remarkable speed while their countrymen erupted in cheers and the world watched transfixed.
Beginning at midnight and sometimes as quickly as once every 40 minutes, the men climbed into a slender cage nearly a half-mile underground and made a smooth ascent into fresh air. By early afternoon, more than half the men — 17 of 33 — had been rescued.
In a meticulously planned operation, they were monitored by video on the way up for any sign of panic. They had oxygen masks, dark glasses to protect their eyes from unfamiliar daylight and sweaters for the jarring climate change, subterranean swelter to the chillier air above.
They emerged looking healthier than many had expected and even clean-shaven, and at least one, Mario Sepulveda, the second to taste freedom, bounded out and thrust a fist upward like a prizefighter.
"I think I had extraordinary luck. I was with God and with the devil. And I reached out for God," he said as he awaited the air force helicopter ride to a nearby hospital where all the miners were to spend 48 hours under medical observation.
The operation moved past the halfway point with the rescue of the 17th miner, a 56-year-old electrician named Omar Reygadas who helped organized life underground. His fourth great-grandchild was born a month after the men were sealed into the mine's lower reaches by an Aug. 5 collapse of 700,000 tons of rock.
As it traveled down and up, down and up, the rescue capsule was not rotating as much inside the 2,041-foot escape shaft as officials expected, allowing for faster trips, and officials said the operation could be complete by sunrise Thursday, if not sooner.
The anxiety that had accompanied the careful final days of preparation broke at 12:11 a.m., with the first rescue — Florencio Avalos, who emerged from the missile-like chamber and smiled broadly after his half-mile journey. He hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son and wife and then President Sebastian Pinera, who has been deeply involved in an effort that had become a matter of national pride.
Avalos was followed an hour later by the most ebullient of the group, Sepulveda, whose shouts were heard even before the capsule peeked above the surface. He hugged his wife and handed out souvenir rocks from the mine to laughing rescuers.
No one in recorded history has survived as long trapped underground as the 33 men. For the first 17 days, no one even knew whether they were alive. In the weeks that followed, the world was captivated by their endurance and unity.
Health Minister Jaime Manalich told a news conference after eight miners were rescued that all of them were in good health, and none has required any special medication, not even the diabetic among them.
Chile exploded in joy and relief at the first, breakthrough rescue just after midnight in the coastal Atacama desert.
In the capital, Santiago, a cacophony of car horns sounded. In the nearby regional capital of Copiapo, from which 24 of the miners hail, the mayor canceled school so parents and children could "watch the rescue in the warmth of the home."
News channels from North America to Europe and the Middle East carried live coverage. Pope Benedict XVI said in Spanish that he "continues with hope to entrust to God's goodness" the fate of the men. Iran's state English-language Press TV followed events live until President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touched down in Lebanon on his first state visit there.
The images beamed worldwide were extraordinary: Grainy footage from beneath the earth showed each miner climbing into the 13-foot-tall capsule, then disappearing upward through an opening. Then a camera showed the pod steadily rising through the dark, smooth-walled tunnel.
After the fifth miner made his ascent — 19-year-old Jimmy Sanchez, the youngest and the father of a months-old baby — the rescuers paused to lubricate the spring-loaded wheels that gave the capsule a smooth ride through the shaft, then resumed the rescues.
The ninth, Mario Gomez, who at 63 is the oldest miner, dropped to his knees after he emerged, bowed his head in prayer and clutched the Chilean flag. His wife, Liliane Ramirez, pulled him up from the ground and embraced him.
Gomez is most experienced of the group, first entering a mine shaft to labor at age 12, and suffers from silicosis, a lung disease common to miners. He has been on antibiotics and bronchial inflammation medicine. Manalich said Gomez came up with a special oxygen mask.
The lone foreigner among the miners, Carlos Mamani of Bolivia, was visited at a nearby clinic by Pinera and Bolivian President Evo Morales. The miner could be heard telling the Chilean president how nice it was to breathe fresh air and see the stars.
Most of the men emerged clean-shaven. Crews had lowered packages dubbed "palomas," Spanish for carrier pigeons, to get food and medicine to the men during their weeks underground, and in the days before rescue they were sent razors and shaving cream.
The entire rescue operation was meticulously choreographed, with no expense spared in bringing in topflight drillers and equipment — and boring three separate holes into the copper and gold mine.
Mining is Chile's lifeblood, providing 40 percent of state earnings, and Pinera put his mining minister and the operations chief of state-owned Codelco, the country's biggest company, in charge of the rescue.
It went so well that its managers abandoned what a legion of journalists had deemed an ultraconservative plan for restricting images of the rescue. A huge Chilean flag that was to obscure the hole from view was moved aside so the hundreds of cameras perched on a hill above could record images that state TV also fed live.
That included the surreal moment when the capsule dropped for the first time into the chamber, where the bare-chested miners, most stripped down to shorts because of the underground heat, mobbed the rescuer who emerged to serve as their guide to freedom.
"This rescue operation has been so marvelous, so clean, so emotional that there was no reason not to allow the eyes of the world — which have been watching this operation so closely — to see it," a beaming Pinera told a news conference after Avalos was brought to the surface.
Avalos, the 31-year-old second-in-command of the miners, was chosen to be first out because he was in the best condition. When the capsule came out of the manhole-sized opening, Avalos stepped out as bystanders cheered, clapped and broke into a chant of the country's name — "Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le!"
The next three men out, including Mamani of Bolivia, followed because they were deemed the fittest of body and mind. The 10 to follow included miners with health problems such as high blood pressure, diabetes and skin ulcers.
The operation started just before midnight, when a Codelco rescuer made the sign of the cross and was lowered to the trapped men. A navy paramedic went down after Avalos came up — a surprise improvisation as officials had said the two would go down to oversee the miners' ascent before the first went up.
The last miner was slated to be shift foreman Luis Urzua, whose leadership was credited with helping the men endure the first two and a half weeks without outside contact. The men made 48 hours' worth of rations last before rescuers reached them with a narrow bore hole to send down more food.
Janette Marin, sister-in-law of miner Dario Segovia, said the order of rescue didn't matter.
"This won't be a success unless they all get out," she said.
Chilean officials played down the risks of the rescue.
Panic attacks during the ascent, they said, were the biggest concern. The miners were not sedated — they needed to be alert in case something went awry. Manalich said rescuers could accelerate the capsule to its maximum speed of 3 meters per second if necessary.
Rescue coordinator Andre Sougarett told The Associated Press beforehand that the worst technical problem would be the possibility that "a rock could fall" and jam the capsule in the shaft.
But Davitt McAteer, who directed the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration, said there were many risks: A miner could get claustrophobic and somehow jam the capsule, the cable could get hung up, or the rig that pulls the cable could overheat.
"You can be good and you can be lucky. And they've been good and lucky," McAteer told the AP just before the operation commenced. "Knock on wood that this luck holds out for the next 33 hours."
The CEO of the Austrian company that made the capsule's winch and pulley system said there was no danger of the motor overheating because the winch was not working under maximum capacity.
Mining Minister Laurence Golborne, whose management of the crisis has made him a media star in Chile, insisted all risks had been considered.
"There is no need to try to start guessing what could go wrong. We have done that job," Golborne said. "We have hundreds of different contingencies."
McAteer said he gave "very high marks" to the Chileans for creating lowered expectations by saying that it might take until Christmas to rescue the men — and then consistently delivering results ahead of schedule.
"Second, they have had very few technical problems," he said.
Three rescue capsules were built by Chilean navy engineers, named Phoenix for the mythical bird that rises from ashes and painted in the white, blue and red of the national flag. Only one has been used in the rescue.
The miners' vital signs were closely monitored throughout the ride. They were given a high-calorie liquid diet donated by NASA, designed to prevent nausea from any rotation of the capsule as it travels through curves in the 28-inch-diameter escape hole.
Engineers inserted steel piping at the top of the shaft, which is angled 11 degrees off vertical before plunging like a waterfall.
Drillers had to curve the shaft to pass through "virgin" rock, narrowly avoiding collapsed areas and underground open spaces in the overexploited mine, which had operated since 1885.
At the regional hospital in Copiapo, two floors were prepared for the miners to be evaluated.
Then the second one....is about the armless pianist in China who went on to win the China Got Talent contest. Wow...me with 2 good arms and legs can't even think of doing 5% of what he have achieved. Yes....play the piano, and can swim well too. For this young man....it takes great discipline and will to live life to the fullest.
See story....
October 12, 2010 : If you think that the piano can be played only by hand, then you should certainly meet Liu Wei. Liu Wei is perhaps the World's best armless pianist.
Liu Wei lost his arms at the age of 10 when he was accidentally electrocuted while playing a game of hide and seek. Liu, a resident of Beijing taught himself to play the piano when he was 18 and has been practicing regularly ever since. For his final performance, Liu performed the song "You're Beautiful" all the while, singing and playing the piano with his feet.
"I really do not care how people regard me. It is enough for me to do the things I like. When other people express their regret and sorrow because I lost both arms, I can tell them confidently that I have perfect feet," he said.
Liu lost his arms when he was 10 after touching a high-voltage wire during a game of hide-and-seek.
At the time he dreamed of becoming a soccer player. He was encouraged by Liu Jingshen, vice-chairman of the Beijing Disabled Persons' Federation, to do daily chores with his feet and started swimming two years later. He won two gold medals and one silver at the National Swimming Championship for the Disabled in 2002.
By the age of 19, Liu had taught himself how to play the piano with his feet and started composing and producing music, practicing more than seven hours every day.
One year later, he was given the chance to work with the famous Hong Kong pop star Andy Lau and they composed the song Let It Be.
"Music is like water and air to me. I can't live without it," Liu Wei has said.
The jury panel of China's Got Talent, Shanghai stand-up comedian Zhou Libo, Taiwan singer-actress Annie Yi and mainland pop composer Gao Xiaosong, all praised Liu's performance.
"We all fought for our dreams when we were young, but no one has fought as hard as you," Gao said at one of the auditions.
"You tell us that to realize our dreams, we need to spare no pain," Yi said.
"There are only two options for the rest of my life: die as soon as possible or live life loud," Liu said during one show, inspiring thousands of people across China.
Liu moved the audience in the stadium and TV viewers when he said "at least I have a pair of perfect legs", according to the report.
Liu started playing the piano at 19 to pursue his childhood dream of being a musician. His first teacher quit because he thought it was impossible for someone to play with their toes, the newspaper said previously.
But Liu, who was studying music theory, persisted and taught himself in secret how to play, creating his own technique.
At the ceremony on Sunday, Liu was invited by Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai to be a guest performer during her overseas tour. The report said he may also receive a performance contract, without elaborating.
Looking at the two events....it does give me "hope" that I can do whatever I set my mind to do and have the will-power to follow thru the action plan. Frankly...the easiest thing for me to do is to lay down and wait for a hopeless death, esp with just thinking of the road ahead for me....is kind of blocked with not much hope. Now with these 2 events today....I should kick myself to get out of this "mind trap" and do whatever needed to live my life meaningfully. Don't wait for hopeless things to happen....when in my heart, I already know that it's time to move on and to let go all the wishful thinking!
Yes....I will do my best after my present job end to master Forex plus go all out with the insurance thingy! If that doesn't work....then it is alright to lay down and die! In doing so.....I would know I done my best and it's time to let go!
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