Guitarist flies... outa´ window...

clipped from www.tonyrogers.com
A teenage guitarist got so carried away while bouncing up and down on his bed mimicking a rock star that he flew out of a third floor window to his death, a Singapore newspaper reported Wednesday. The Straits Times said Li Xiao Meng, a 16-year-old from China who was studying at Singapore's Hua Business School, was a keen musician who liked to jump up and down while playing his guitar in his hostel room. "But on November 17 he took things a bit too far," the newspaper said, reporting on a coroner's court findings. Ruling death by misadventure, the court said evidence "points to the deceased unintentionally falling out of the window to his death when he was hyped up with exhilaration, jumping up and down on the bed placed against an open window while mimicking a rock guitarist." Normally the windows were locked, the newspaper said, but students sometimes forced them open so they could smoke, something prohibited by the hostel.

It snowed again... after 62 years!

Kathmandu Valley Snow

Some pictures from our compound on the day it snowed! Though it was around 13:00 in the afternoon, the tempeature plummeted to +1.6°C/abt.+34.9°F !
All afternoon we heard a roar of bikes and cars going flat-out up the hill to Nagarkot.

Only in China? Phone thief repents after 21 text messages

BEIJING (Reuters Life!) - A Chinese thief has returned a mobile phone and thousands of yuan he stole from a woman after she sent him 21 touching text messages, Xinhua news agency said on Monday.

Pan Aiying, a teacher in the eastern province of Shandong, had her bag containing her mobile phone, bank cards and 4,900 yuan ($630) snatched by a man riding a motorcycle as she cycled home on Friday, Xinhua said, citing the Qilu Evening News.

Pan first thought of calling the police but she decided to try to persuade the young man to return her bag.

She called her lost phone with her colleague's cell phone but was disconnected. Then she began sending text messages.
"I'm Pan Aiying, a teacher from Wutou Middle School. You must be going through a difficult time. If so, I will not blame you," wrote Pan in her first text message which did not get a response.

"Keep the 4,900 yuan if you really need it, but please return the other things to me. You are still young. To err is human. Correcting your mistakes is more important than anything," Pan wrote.

She gave up hope of seeing her possessions again after sending 21 text messages without a reply.

But on her way out on Sunday morning, she stumbled over a package that had been left in her courtyard only to discover it was her stolen bag. Nothing had been taken.

"Dear Pan: I'm sorry. I made a mistake. Please forgive me," a letter inside said.

"You are so tolerant even though I stole from you. I'll correct my ways and be an upright person."

I'll try to post a "Sunshine Story" now & then - life is more surprising than any fiction!

Lost in city's jungle

New immigrant Damon Mootoo had been in New York for less than a day when he faced one of the city's toughest challenges: navigating the confusing streets of Queens.

Mootoo spent five long, cold days wandering Jamaica after he got lost during a walk and was too intimidated to ask strangers how to get home. Mootoo, 32, was rescued yesterday by a kindhearted churchgoer who spotted him shivering on a Queens street and gave him food and water.

"I want to go home," Mootoo said last night after his stressful misadventure. "I'm thinking about going back to Guyana."

Mootoo got lost Wednesday, less than 12 hours after arriving in New York for the first time, when he left his brother's South Jamaica house to stretch his legs.

He was being treated last night at Jamaica Hospital for the dehydration and frostbite he suffered in the frigid air.

"When we saw him, he was just crying," said Mootoo's brother Mark Miller, 43. "He said, 'I'm glad to see you.' "

When Mootoo left Miller's two-story house on 152nd St. Wednesday morning, he wasn't wearing gloves or carrying an ID.

Miller said Mootoo had recently received his permanent resident card and was excited about starting a new life in America.

"He said he was trying to find his way back," Miller said. "He said he was just walking all over. He was scared. He heard all the stories about New York."

Mootoo, who is hard of hearing but can communicate in English, told relatives he didn't want to approach a cop because he feared he'd be deported.

He survived by begging several homeowners for water, but he was too ashamed and shy to ask for food or directions back to 152nd St., Miller said. At night, when temperatures plunged into the low 20s, Mootoo slept in an abandoned car or sought shelter from the snow under a piece of wood in a stranger's yard, he told relatives.

Meanwhile, his panicked kin posted flyers with Mootoo's picture across South Jamaica and formed search parties.

"We were thinking the worst after so many days," Miller said.

But just when hope was fading, Michael Bharath, 37, was walking home from church and saw Mootoo near his house on 142nd Place at Rockaway Blvd. "He looked in desperation," Bharath said.

Bharath's wife, Cynthia, made Mootoo a sandwich. Feeling secure, Mootoo told them his situation.

Michael Bharath asked if he had anything with his relatives' address written on it. Mootoo dug in his pockets and found a piece of paper with his stepmother's Foch Blvd. address. Bharath drove him there and reunited Mootoo with his worried family.

"When I see people in need, I try to help them," Bharath said. "He was in need, and I'm pretty sure that within a couple more hours he would have been a dead man."