Wishes

I'm penning this note in the last 30 minutes of 2005. 2005 has been quite a roller coaster ride for me
- firstly, in my old company, I did quite well by running and closing off the last project I was on with a higher margin of revenue for my firm
- I did join the Independent Software Architect's Council of Malaysia
- but some bizarre twists at work caused me to be betrayed by a close colleague of mine
- and with the high number of partners in financial services in my ex-firm, I felt that I didn't really have much avenue to move upwards in my ex-firm's up or out policies, thus I decided to leave
- went close to joining one of my friend's start up firms as a CTO, but ended up joining an end user company, with wider responsibilities (global) but with the times I don't travel, I get to stay at home and spend more time with the family

For 2006, I have a few simple wishes
- firstly, for good health for both my wife and son. Some of you may know how much I struggled this year juggling work and times where I had to stay home to help my wife and son out whenever one of them gets knocked out. I'm hoping that this year brings them more stability and better health
- secondly, some of you may know that my wife is expecting kid No. 2. Her first few months of pregnancy was tough, but so far, in her 4th month, things seem to be looking better and my simple wish here is for a good pregnancy for her.
- thirdly, my wish is for my 3rd maid to finally work out well for me and my wife.
- next, I'm also wishing for good health for myself. With all the travel and late nights working to catch my current company's US folks, it has been taxing on the health. I wish for good health for myself
- lastly, I wish for a good and stable career. I am enjoying myself currently, with all the travel and time I get to spend at home. I don't get to do much architecting work as I used to do in my previous consulting job. And I guess this is something I still yearn for, that's why I came close to taking up that CTO job. I wish for a good balance of what I like in the year 2006.

Have a good new year!

Cambodia

Ya.. a few days ago, my new maid arrived from Cambodia. In fact, she arrived before my trip down to Singapore but we were already planning the trip...

and of course, my wife was a bit wary of this new maid. This will be our 3rd maid (so hopefully you won't see me logging on at 6am whilst doing laundry) and our last 2 maids were from Indonesia.

The first was ok for the 1st year. She kinda got influenced by my neighbour's maid who kept passing notes to her and influencing her to "be lazy" etc etc. My neighbour's maid (or rather, all my left neighbour's maids) seem to follow this pattern of wanting to talk to my maid, influencing them etc. OK.. I've tried talking to my neighbour, but somehow once my maid talks to my neighbour's maid, then her performance degrades etc etc. Sigh.

My 2nd maid, only lasted less than 3 mths! Sent her back on Valentine's day last year! The moment she arrived, she was sickly, and in her 2nd week already she was passing notes to my neighbour. Worse, my 2nd maid used to work in Taiwan. More $, less work (cause in a condo, her employee doesn't stay at home a lot etc) so of course she compares her lifestyle and she herself bitched to the neighbour and wanted to go back to Taiwan. Damn.. so her perf deteriorated.

Now, we've decided to revert to a Cambodian maid, hopefully communication will serve as a barrier with my neighbour's maid.. but so far, even us communicating with her has been a challenge! She understands a little English, but it is challenging..

More news on this as days go bye!

MRR

My son has a new passion. Its name is Machine Robo Rescue!

http://www.animenfo.com/animetitle,1144,lpapdt,machine_robo_re.html

He got hooked on his last trip to Singapore, where he was inundiated with the toys and VCDs. I bought him the original VCDs (too lazy to wait for bit torrent to finish downloading... )

He even has 3 of the robos
- the Shuttle Robo
- Drill Robo
- Police Robo
(what to do? Robinsons had 15% discount storewide up to Christmas day...)

Here are some pictures

http://toyboxst.inwards.com/rumblizer/view.php?article_key=176

http://toyboxst.inwards.com/rumblizer/pic.php?article_key=176&image_table=images&name=p_mrtb4r.JPG

http://toyboxst.inwards.com/rumblizer/pic.php?article_key=176&image_table=images&name=p_mrtb2k.JPG

Amex

In my previous company, we were issued with Amex corporate cards. Mine had a July 06 expiry. When I was in New York a few weeks ago, we were having dinner at a Chinese Restaurant that only took Amex. So, I used my Amex card.

Nothing ominous so far, right?

So then, today, I called Amex up. My statement currently goes to my prev company. Not good for me, a good paymaster, so I called to switch the billing address.

The surprising thing I found out was that my card apparently was cancelled end Nov by my prev company! And the puzzling thing is with a cancelled card, I could still swipe and have dinner in the US on Dec 13!

Bizarre!

Christmas!

Christmas was a nice and family oriented event. I'm not a Christian, so no big celebration for me. I attended an open house on Christmas day and that's about it. Then on boxing day, since it was a holiday, I did what Malaysians did.. go shopping!

So there I was, trying to muscle my way into 1 Utama at 11am, with pack loads of cars all squeezing in. At 730 pm, there was this Santa who abseiled all the way down from the top of 1 Utama.



My son had a fun time as they shot down bubbles to simulate snow!

Bizarre

Check out this sign board I saw at Plaza Singapura. What the...

Tree

Here's a shot of the Takashimaya giant X-mas tree in Singapore.

Creepy

Encountered 2 creepy signs in Singapore. The first one puts chills in any mans heart!



My wife, everytime she comes to Singapore, she gets sucked into this white gold/ diamond buying frenzy. Scary!

Then here's another bizarre sign!



Imagine.. XXXXXL! Man, what a fat lard!

Decisions

Reached Singapore and almost immediately spent almost 3 hours in the toy department of Robinsons.

Here's a picture of my son in his favourite Transformers section...


But I have a dilemma. Have always wanted to get a Playstation. Suddenly spotted the Playstation 2 Slim + 2 Original Games (Tekken 5 and one more Kung Fu whack em game) going for SGD349 (RM791 or USD 209). How, cheap ar? Should I buy? Comments! Then I go online and find out at sony.com.sg it's SGD285! At Sony.com.my it's RM799! I'm checking out Funan tomorrow!

Vacation

I'm taking a long awaited vacation starting tomorrow for a few days. Going down to Singapore. It's a yearly pilgrimage during X-mas to let the wife and kid enjoy the lights and shopping.

However, because of the nature of my work, which involves quite a bit of con calls at nite, i think i will still be working. That's the cool thing about my job, it lets me take calls pretty much anywhere but obviously, taking the call in a quiet place helps.

So much so that I'm seriously checking out the Jabra bluetooth headset with noise cancelling facilities. Drool. http://www.jabra.com/JabraCMS/AP/EN/MainMenu/Products/WirelessHeadsets/JabraBT800/JabraBT800

Optimus

By popular demand, some snapshots of Optimus Prime!

Here he is in normal mode...

Here he is in Super Mode...

Check out the heavy artillery in Super Mode!

Reflections

It's almost 3 months since I left my consulting job end Sept and it's probably about time I sat down and reflected on how my life has changed.

Firstly, what do I miss in my consulting job?

1. I miss having a proper set time where I wake up in the morning, join in the rush hour and drive or take the train to work. Now with me working at home, you might say, hey.. isn't it better. True. But sometimes, the drive helps me think and reflect. It also gives me the opportunity to listen to the radio and win prizes and catch up on what's the latest. I don't even know what songs are hot now! But I do save a lot on petrol!

2. I miss meeting people. Most of the time, I spend on the phone on conference calls. It's only when I travel when I meet people. There's only so much you can achieve on a conference call. You cannot really "impose" on someone when you're over the phone. Worst still, if you haven't met that person, it makes it even trickier.

3. I miss proper methodologies. Being in a user organisation, everything is so disorderly. I can operate at 10% of what I used to operate and I'd probably be a star. Serious. Everything's hap hazard.

4. I miss working with good people. Half the folks I work with are bozzos. Hell... my boss' name is also that! The other half are ex-ConsultingCompany folks, so it does feel like working in my old company. One of the guys working for me is ex-ConCo. The Asia Regional IT fella is ex-ConCo. The Latin America representative is ex-ConCo. So many!

5. I miss wearing work clothes. Ya.. I'm so "selekeh" and slackly dressed.. I don't shave until my next business trip (so it is common for me to go around unshaven for abt 2 weeks!). My wife thinks I'm a slob. Etc.

There are more reasons, but hey, here's a start...

Megazords

Someone asked me before "eh.. u sure your son a Power Ranger freak?"

Lemme show you what he has... each one of that Megazord costs abt RM150 at least. I'm like, wah lao eh.. last time when young, main guli only!

iPod

someone was asking me if the new iPod truly played videos or if it only played videos from iTunes.

Well, lemme tell you, you can rip DVDs straight into the iPod, or download stuff from the internet, convert it into iPod format (mp4 format) and get it viewable on the iPod.

I used this software. It's Free!

http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/

Here's proof of me showing off an episode of the Amazing Race, downloaded using bit torrent, converted into mp4!

Pau

Here's another bizarre sign I saw in Hong Kong...

English

I was strutting around Nathan Road today when I spotted the following shop with an amusing name...

Photos

Since u guys asked for photos, here are some shots taken from my Sony Ericsson W800i. Above is a shot of Times Square...

Below is a shot from inside Toys R Us with a huge T-Rex in there.


A shot from Ground Zero


Lady Liberty on Liberty Island.. taken from the ferry...

This is the famous Rockefeller Christmas Tree..taken using the Sony's nite shot.

Central Park after snow... New York's first day of snow this winter 2006!

Cold

The last few days in NY was flipping cold! So cold that I had to go out and buy thermal underwear! Jialat!

Yesterday was Saturday so did the tourist thing by first going to China town to have dim sum for breakfast at this place dodgily called Dim Sum Go Go. Not as good as back home or Sydney - oily and springy.

After that, it was a short walk to Ground Zero to watch the previous site for the World Trade Centres. Very poignant.

From Ground Zero, it was a short walk to buy ferry tickets to go over to Liberty Island to see Lady Liberty. The line just to take the ferry was ridiculously long! Worst still, it was a full body check before you got onto the ferry with metal dectectors etc! More strict than in an airport!

But the ferry ride was worth it. Nice, serene, and the walk around Liberty Island was pleasant. It was getting colder and colder, that's why after that, cannot tahan, had to go to this departmental store to get the thermal underwear!

Sexy

As a married man, I must admit that sometimes, temptation is too great. Yesterday, it was late after another 12 hour work day, when suddenly, thru the corner of my eye, I spotted her.. waiting for me as I got back to my hotel room. She looked so stern, sitting there at my door, inviting herself in...

I stared at her, trembling with excitement and I could not control myself as I started to undress her. Layer by layer, I peeled off her clothes, first the outer layer, then slowly stroking her white body. I never imagined how smooth her skin is.... just tooo emotional with feelings...

She brought with her some ... attachments... which she coooed me to slowly insert it into her... that's when she let out a soft cry..... I turned her on and she moaned louder and louder...

My love, my new iPod...

Tough

The last few days in New York was tough. On the flight to NY, I developed a sore throat. By the time I got to New York, I was down with a fever, sore throat etc... for 3 days, i was mildly feverish, bad throat etc... things only cleared up on the 4th day... so miserable...