Gong Xi Fa Cai

Happy New Year! It's my year! Yes, I'm a dog. But even as a dog, Lillian Too says it's not particularly a great year for dogs, so, i'm having all my annual feng shui anti affliction materials placed around the house.

I also noticed that I last updated this blog perhaps a week ago! Ya... been extremely busy. I got back from New York last week, and it's been sorting out Korea production issues, sorting out the cutover for India (just had the go/no go call today.. No Go :(.. so, been quite hectic

And next week, I'm flying off to New York again for some meetings. The only reason why I'm updating this is I'm listening to a status call on a project in Dublin (it's 2am now KL time) and I need to do something to perk me up.

I was playing "Devil May Cry" in the morning and that certainly perked me up!

Tired

I'm now back in HK, a 1 day stopover before I head home tomorrow. Man, this is a tiring trip. Already my wife is making noise. This trip alone, I went to Korea, then to Ny, then back to Korea, now in HK.

Once I got down, it was meetings till end of the day. I'm pooped.

And after CNY, I need to make another trip to NY again! And I also got a request to go down to Australia... but my wife making noise already abt that Australia trip... hmm...

Fear Factor

I checked out the oscilating button on the toilet. What it does is it moves around whilst spraying the water to your arse. Damn funky. Gets rid of the sticky bits without much of your own bum having to move around!

Now tonite, I had dinner with some Koreans. They brought us to some Korean dining and one of the dishes looked like it stepped out of a Fear Factor episode!

Hi-tech

It's Sunday morning, had a good nite sleep after last nite's cutover. I'm an early person so I've got a few hours before my next meeting at 11am with the users. The users are coming in for some test inquiries.

I was telling u guys before about the incredibly hi tech toilet that I had in my hotel room, the one that had controls for automatically washing the arse and drying the arse...

Here's a photo

Dejavu

I'm back in Korea! Left New York around 9pm Thursday nite (which was 10am KL time on Fri) and touched down in Korea around 3pm Korea time on Saturday (2pm KL).

The trip to New York was tiring. Almost every nite, I slept at 2am, then had to wake up at 4am for a Korea cutover preparation call.. followed by calls to India and Korea at 6am, 7am, 8am... that's why in the conference I attended (it was a conference bringing together all of my companies' International countries' CIOs) I fell asleep on more than a few occassions.

I got into the office around 5pm.. and it's now almost 840pm. We're waiting for a while more for the final go-no go decision...

I'm gonna be here until Mon morning. Then I'm off to Hong Kong to kick some vendor's butts because of the cock ups on a project there!

Doral

Here's where I'm staying now. http://www.doralarrowwood.com

Kinda feels like St. Charles! But with bigger rooms and better food. We'll see. Today's Martin Luther King's birthday so NY is having a holiday. But us Asian folks are working out butts off with conference calls!

I arrived around 10pm, started my calls till 2am! Now I'm up again at 7am starting more calls till 9am!

No time to lepak!

Lepak

Was supposed to be monitoring the cutover in Korea, but since we deferred the cutover to next week, today I spent the day lepaking in Korea.

Went over to the royal palace, walked around. Ate ginseng chicken. MMmm mmmmm.

Went also to the Dong dae num area and checked out the flea markets there.

Had a Korean BBQ dinner.

Tah pow about 8 packets of Korean instant noodles! Getting ready for my long and ardous trip to New York tomorrow,and the instant noodles is to tahan the late nites in this ulu place called Doral Arrowood, 1 hour away from New York City.

Korea

I'm in Korea now. Arrived last nite, and straight when I got into my hotel room at 11pm, I was on conference calls till 3am! Damn.

Today, we also made a decision to delay the Korea cutover because of several issues. Tough call. Wasted my trip here. Now I'll have to be here again next weekend!

I'm in the Park Hyatt. My toilet seat cover warms itself!

Police

I tell you, the inefficiencies of this country.

I went to my nearby police station yesterday to make a police report. The guy said that the theft happened in a different area so I need to go to a different station to make the report. Then after quite a big of begging, they said they could take down the report, but I need to manually bring the form to the other police station. Damn.. Aren't their systems online?

So today, I went to the Damansara police station to make the report. There I was presented with numerous "templates" to follow. Thereafter, I was introduced to the Investigator. He said "why so late make the report?". I said I was not free. He then said "how to investigate now? cannot lar.. consider lost..."

KNNECCB!

Lost

My laptop got stolen yesterday. Flipping crap man.

I was at Tesco Mutiara Damansara at 940pm. Parked my car. Only had 1 thing to grab. Left laptop just behind the seat, not really visible.

Came back at 950pm. Window smashed. Laptop gone.

Flip...!

No wonder, the last few days, I had this urge to back up my data.. but did not.. :(

Lost my laptop, old mp3 player, house keys, token and also my Dell Axim PDA. Fuming mad. Reported to the Tesco security. The guy basically shrugged and said good luck.

Second

Today was quite a day for my son.

I took some pictures of him going to school in his bus.



Here are some pictures taken during his school break. Just look at the stack loads of kids!




But towards the end of the day, my son got into his first fight in the school bus. There was this one kid who bullied my son. And I thought my son, being the smallest dude in the bus, would be scared. He told me after that that he whacked the boy, kicked him some more in the eye!

Whilst I was proud of him for standing up, this incident got me so shaken with my kid's fight back. I spent the nite counselling him but I'm so worried today of what will happen. Fingers crossed!

First Day

My son's first day of school today. Some interesting pictures here.

Here's a picture of him lining up practicing "how to line up and proceed into class". You cannot really see him. He's the smallest head in the middle of the picture!

I caught him sitting alone in class! The teacher must have observed his "talkativeness" prowess and assigned him a lone seat!



During one of his breaks, he took a trip to the toilet. Quite funny, he went there with a shirt tucked in. When he got out, his shirt all tucked out! Slack! But cute! Cannot fault him!

School

Tomorrow is the start of school for my son. He's going to a chinese school in Damansara, opposite Tropicana. His school hours are roughly 1.05pm - 6.35pm Mon - Thurs, 12.50 - 6.05 on Fri.

I'm already starting to have the jitters.

Firstly, my son's so used to having an afternoon nap such that going to school in the afternoon might make him sleepy.

Next, he comes back by bus possibly around 8pm each day, then every Tues and Fri we've arranged for some tuition for him.. no choice lah, both my wife and I are illiterate in Chinese. And his tuition starts at 8pm! So I'm now scratching my head.. how do I get him back in time? He needs to eat.. if not, "masuk angin". Sigh.. all the trials and tribulations of starting school... for me!

Looks like tomorrow I'll be picking him up from school to get him back sooner!

Nameless

No.. not some new Jet Li movie, but I was having a nice New Year Day dinner with my family in a place near my home and one of the items they had on their menu was this "Nameless Prawns"!

I'm like, so? When did prawns ever had names? Unless you're referring to the prawns that escaped in Shark Tales!



Picture's a little blur - sorry!

Resolutions

My last blog was about new year wishes. It's time to put some resolutions for the new year.

Again, my list is simple:

1. Stop biting my finger nails. A bad habit since Uni days, never seemed to go away, home thru sheer willpower it will be eradicated this year.
2. Start having better control of my temper with my kid. Although he's ultimately cute, he's the epitome of mischief and at times gets on my nerves. I vow to be more patient (although I might lose more hair!) and to try to control my temper with him better.

That's it! Simple!

So far, the new year started quite well with Liverpool's 1-0 win over WBA! It's 10th straight victory in the EPL!