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Saturday, October 30, 2010

Touching Story - Katie Kirkpatrick

January 15, 2005.

21-year-old Katie Kirkpatrick — the girl “with a contagious smile and unrelenting optimism” who had been battling cancer for three years and even took part in champion cyclist Lance Armstrong’s Ride for the Roses cancer fundraiser — married 23 year-old Lapeer County sheriff’s deputy Nick Goodwin, her high school sweetheart and the love of her life, at Church of Christ in Hazel Park, Michigan.

This picture was taken prior to their wedding January 11th, 2005.

Katie has terminal cancer and spends hours in chemotherapy.
Here Nick awaits while she finishes one of the sessions...


Even in pain and dealing with her organs shutting down, with the help of morphine,
Katie took care of every single part of the wedding planning.
Her dress had to be adjusted several times due to Katie 's constant weight loss.


An expected guest was her oxygen tank. Katie had to use it during the ceremony and reception.
The other couple in this picture is Nick's parents, very emotional with the wedding and to see their
Son marrying the girl he fell in love when he was an adolescent.


Katie , in a wheel chair listening to her husband and friends singing to her.


In the middle of the party, Katie had to rest for a bit and catch her breath.
The pain does not allow her to stand for long period of time.


Katie died 5 days after her wedding. Watching a woman so ill and weak getting married and with a smile on her face makes us think - Happiness is reachable, no matter how long it last. We should stop making our lives complicated.


Origins:
On Valentine's Day 2002, Katie Kirkpatrick, then a freshman at Rochester College (a small Christian college in Rochester Hills, Michigan) was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Undaunted, Katie strove to keep up with her studies, but she suffered another setback in 2003 when she was diagnosed with "an inoperable lung tumor wrapped around her pulmonary artery." Nonetheless, in 2004 the resilient Katie took part in champion cyclist Lance Armstrong's "Ride for the Roses" cancer fundraiser.

Dr. Craig Bowman of the Bible faculty spearheaded a campus and area-wide effort that raised $28,000 which made one of Katie's dreams come true: riding with six-time Tour de France winner and fellow cancer survivor Lance Armstrong in his Ride for the Roses cancer fundraiser.

Says Katie of Armstrong, "I like his attitude and his perseverance. I admire him for the way he dealt with his cancer, and his attitude: 'You know what, this isn't going to beat me!'"

On 15 January 2005, 21-year-old Katie the girl "with a contagious smile and unrelenting optimism" who had been battling cancer for three years married Lapeer County sheriff's deputy Nick Godwin, her high school sweetheart and the love of her life, at Church of Christ in Hazel Park, Michigan. Katie Kirkpatrick Godwin passed away at the McLaren Regional Medical Center in Flint, Michigan, on 20 January 2005, just five days after her wedding. Her husband, Nick, said of the wedding and Katie's passing: "It was wonderful. It was a dream come true. She was the most beautiful angel ever; just caring and selfless, and such an inspiration to everyone. She was always smiling no matter what happened, no matter what news she got. She was as close to perfect as they come."

She did not let sickness stop her from living, take away the hope or faith that made her believe she had a future. She had a lovely wedding and she had love and she gave love and love doesn't die. And that is how Katie beat cancer.


Additional photographs of Katie and her wedding can be viewed on the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) web site.

Friday, October 22, 2010

50 Incredibly Weird Facts About the Human Body

I was on my Facebook just now and I came across a personal message by 5 stating that he dreamed quite frequent in his sleep. And a friend says that dreaming could leads to high IQ and he replied with a link. So, I click over to the webpage and saw these! All the contents are from here.

The Brain

Complex and poorly understood, the brain is what makes everything work properly. The body may be kept alive, but without the brain, a person can’t truly live. Here are some interesting and weird facts about the brain.

1. The brain doesn’t feel pain: Even though the brain processes pain signals, the brain itself does not actually feel pain.

2. Your brain has huge oxygen needs: Your brain requires 20 percent of the oxygen and calories your body needs — even though your brain only makes up two percent of your total body weight.

3. 80% of the brain is water: Instead of being relatively solid, your brain 80% water. This means that it is important that you remain properly hydrated for the sake of your mind.

4. Your brain comes out to play at night: You’d think that your brain is more active during the day, when the rest of your body is. But it’s not. Your brain is more active when you sleep.

5. Your brain operates on 10 watts of power: It’s true: The amazing computational power of your brain only requires about 10 watts of power to operate.

6. A higher I.Q. equals more dreams: The smarter you are, the more you dream. A high I.Q. can also fight mental illness. Some people even believe they are smarter in their dreams than when they are awake.

7. The brain changes shapes during puberty: Your teenage years do more than just change how you feel; the very structure of your brain changes during the teen years, and it even affects impulsive, risky behavior.

8. Your brain can store everything: Technically, your brain has the capacity to store everything you experience, see, read or hear. However, the real issue is recall — whether you can access that information.

9. Information in your brain travels at different speeds: The neurons in your brain are built differently, and information travels along them at different speeds. This is why sometimes you can recall information instantly, and sometimes it takes a little longer.


Your Senses

You might be surprised at the amazing things your various senses can accomplish.

10. Your smell is unique: Your body odor is unique to you — unless you have an identical twin. Even babies recognize the individual scents of their mothers.

11. Humans use echolocation: Humans can use sound to sense objects in their area using echolocation. It is thought that those who are blind develop this ability to heightened effectiveness.

12. Adrenaline gives you super strength: Yes, with the proper response in certain situations, you really can lift a car.

13. Women smell better than men: Women are better than men at identifying smells.

14. Your nose remembers 50,000 scents: It is possible for your nose to identify and remember more than 50,000 smells.

15.Your hearing decreases when you overeat: When you eat too much food, it actually reduces your ability to hear. So consider eating healthy — and only until you are full.

16.Your sense of time is in your head: How you experience time is all about your perception. Some speculate that stress can help you experience time dilation. Apparently, time manipulation isn’t just for superheroes.


Reproduction

How we as a species reproduce offers all sorts of interesting weird facts. Here are some of the weirder things you might not know.

17. Your teeth are growing before birth: Even though it takes months after you are born to see teeth, they start growing about six months before you are born.

18. Babies are stronger than oxen: On a pound for pound basis, that is. For their size, babies are quite powerful and strong.

19. Babies always have blue eyes when they are born: Melanin and exposure to ultraviolet light are needed to bring out the true color of babies’ eyes. Until then they all have blue eyes.

20. Women might be intrinsically bi: There are sex studies that indicate that women might bisexual intrinsically, no matter how they class themselves, while men are usually either gay or straight.

21.Most men have regular erections while asleep: Every hour to hour and a half, sleeping men have erections — though they may not be aware of it.

22. Sex can be a pain reliever: Even though the “headache” excuse is often used to avoid sex, the truth is that intercourse can provide pain relief. Sex can also help you reduce stress.

23. Chocolate is better than sex: In some studies, women claim they would rather have chocolate than sex. But does it really cause orgasm? Probably not on its own.


Body Functions

The things our bodies do are often strange and sometimes gross. Here are some weird facts about the way your body functions.

24. Earwax is necessary: If you want healthy ears, you need some earwax in there.

25. Your feet can produce a pint of sweat a day: There are 500,000 (250,000 for each) sweat glands in your feet, and that can mean a great deal of stinky sweat.

26. Throughout your life, the amount of saliva you have could fill two swimming pools: Since saliva is a vital part of digestion, it is little surprise that your mouth makes so much of it.

27. A full bladder is about the size of a soft ball: When your bladder is full, holding up to 800 cc of fluid, it is large enough to be noticeable.

28. You probably pass gas 14 times a day: On average, you will expel flatulence several times as part of digestion.

29. A sneeze can exceed 100 mph: When a sneeze leaves your body, it does so at high speeds — so you should avoid suppressing it and causing damage to your body.

30. Coughs leave at 60 mph: A cough is much less dangerous, leaving the body at 60 mph. That’s still highway speed, though.


Musculoskeletal System

Find out what you didn’t know about your muscles and bones.

31. Bones can self-destruct: It is possible for your bones to destruct without enough calcium intake.

32. You are taller in the morning: Throughout the day, the cartilage between your bones is compressed, making you about 1 cm shorter by day’s end.

33. 1/4 of your bones are in your feet: There are 26 bones in each foot, meaning that the 52 bones in account for 25 percent of your body’s 206 bones.

34. It takes more muscles to frown than to smile: Scientists can’t agree on the exact number, but more muscles are required to frown than to smile.

35. When you take a step, you are using up to 200 muscles: Walking uses a great deal of muscle power — especially if you take your 10,000 steps.

36. Your tongue is the strongest muscle in your body: Compared to its size, the tongue is the strongest muscle. But I doubt you’ll be lifting weights with it.

37. Bone can be stronger than steel: Once again, this is a pound for pound comparison, since steel is denser and has a higher tensile strength.


Unnecessary Body Parts

We have a number of body parts that are, well, useless. Here are some facts about the body parts we don’t actually need.

38. Coccyx: This collection of fused vertebrae have no purpose these days, although scientists believe it’s what’s left of the mammal tail humans used to have. It may be useless, but when you break your coccyx, it’s still painful.

39. Pinkie toe: There is speculation that since we no longer have to run for our dinner, and we wear sneakers, the pinkie toe’s evolutionary purpose is disappearing — and maybe the pinkie itself will go the way of the dodo.

40. Wisdom teeth: This third set of molars is largely useless, doing little beyond crowding the mouth and sometimes causing pain.

41. Vomeronasal organ: There are tiny (and useless) chemoreceptors lining the inside of the nose.

42. Most body hair: While facial hair serves some purposes, the hair found on the rest of body is practically useless and can be removed with few ill effects.

43. Female vas deferens: A cluster of dead end tubules near the ovaries are the remains of what could have turned into sperm ducts.

44. Male Uterus: Yeah, men have one too — sort of. The remains of this undeveloped female reproductive organ hangs on one side of the male prostate gland

45. Appendix: Yep, your appendix is basically useless. While it does produce some white blood cells, most people are fine with an appendectomy.


Random Weird Body Facts

Here are a few final weird facts about the human body.

46. Your head creates inner noises: It’s rare, but exploding head syndrome exists.

47. Memory is affected by body position: Where you are and how you are placed in your environment triggers memory.

48. You can’t tickle yourself: Go ahead. Try to tickle yourself.

49. Being right-handed can prolong your life: If you’re right-handed, you could live up to nine years longer than a lefty.

50. Only humans shed emotional tears: Every other animal that produces tears has a physiological reason for doing so.

After reading these, I'm quite surprise. The most interesting fact is male homo sapiens do have a uterus! Wow! Which facts interest you the most?

Friday, October 15, 2010

McD in Kampar!

Official opening date: 14 October 2010.
Official opening time: 0010 hours.

Number of customers: Countless.


Yup. It was so crowded at the new McD restaurant in Kampar. Well, can't blame folks in Kampar for being too ecstatic because entertainment and choice of fast food outlets are limited in this town.

I was planning to go there to buy a RM1 sundae but instead, I went to 7-11 to eat Wall's Cornetto. McD's too crowded! Not worth the wait as I only want an ice-cream.

So crowded!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

goo.gl

Hi everyone! I've been exceptionally active in Twitter nowadays and I've been using Google's url shortener to post links on my twitter.

A few tweets using goo.gl

There are another two url shortener namely Tiny Url and bit.ly which are widely used. In comparison, goo.gl is relatively new. So, little or less people will use it.

What I like about goo.gl is you can track the urls you've posted using goo.gl. That's cool right? You can even knows the referrals and how many clicks on the url you post! :) First thing first, you can only view them if you shorten your url when you're logged in to your Google account.

There are 8 clicks on my Hugo Boss Fragrance Sample blog post.

Some of the details you'll get to know.

It's a good url shortener to me. So try it today and you may love it too! :)

Sunday, October 10, 2010

10.10.10: Life, the Universe and Everything.


Today is the perfect 10 day - 10.10.10, the answer to life, the Universe and everything. So, I was on my Twitter and a tweet from @Alexia, a writer at TechCrunch posted this:



It caught my attention so I went to Google about it and found this:

101010 in binary is 42, which is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything (don't really know why though). Apparently, it's an auspicious number.

So my question is...how they know 10.10.10 is the answer to life, the Universe and everything? Confused...

Hugo Boss Fragrance Sample.

Two weeks ago, I stumbled upon Hugo's website and decided to try if they'll send samples to Malaysia. Surprisingly...they do! And I deemed it's a quite fast delivery.



The postcard. It's nice!

I like the postcard they send. The fragrance bottle design is so nice! And this one is men's fragrance. I use 5's name and Kampar address for this. For the women's fragrance, I'm using my Teluk Intan address.



The Sample.

And it's from Netherlands. Wow...good effort of them to send samples worldwide.



If you guys want to apply for a sample, visit http://www.hugo.com/.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

New Twitter Interface.

Some of you guys may already know that Twitter is changing their interface. Though, only certain "lucky" ones get chosen to test it and I'm one of the "lucky" ones. :)

So, compared to the old interface, the new interface is much more easy to access and is more organized.

Oh ya, the new Twitter now enables you to see photos and videos without clicking on the link and watch it on the relevant website. :)

My Twitter @annetwl

You see, I've found out a site that offers lots of nice background for Twitter! Here's the site: http://web1.colourlovers.com/themeleon/twitter

Themeleon Interface.


Do add me on twitter @annetwl!