My first watches

I am sentimental when it comes to watches. It's a mechanism that tells the time and in a way represents the time and moment when I obtained each time piece

I had many watches over the years but the very first watch I ever bought was the Swatch Approaching Dial

It was purchased during my first year into NS and I wore it everyday. I still have it and would put it on each Sunday, just to give the auto quartz a little charge. Sadly the original strap is beyond repaired. 

I had my first automatic during my honeymoon. It was a bit of fun to have a square face beauty that exposes the internal mechanism. 

I wished I had been more careful with this fossil me3009. After getting the glass chip off, it is too deadly to put it on my wrist. 

Lately, I took a big leap and got myself my first highend watch.  It's a little out of character for me, as I have been saving to pay off my mortgage. Nonetheless I have been slaving for 10 years and its "timely"  for a small indulgence. 

I won't reveal the model nor the sum I had paid for it. All I would say that it's my 2nd automatic and it has sapphire glass. Hope it won't ever chip off 

An idea

Its been the 3rd day of my 2 weeks leave to explore Life as a Stay home parents. Ok. Its mostly becos my mom whom is the caretaker of my Little One is somewhere in Europe.

Before all these, I used to wake up early to prepare for work. Waking up early gives me time to play my games, check my messages and most of all, read the Straits Times. Well since I am on leave, I see no reason to wake up at 6.30am and would stretch my sleep for as long as possible. That is till my LO wakes up hungry. This would be about 7.30ish.

So there goes my Morning Me time and for the rest of the day, I would be sufficiently rested but am out sync with the news, current affairs and FB trending topics. And this got me thinking, what if there is a Newspaper just for kids. Wont this be a brilliant idea.

It could come with 2 main sections, that cater to ages 1-3 and 3-6. There would be articles that is not too heavy with words but yet gives young children a summary of the real news. This would encourage them to read and ask about the larger world out there.... (I might regret this part).

There would also be articles on what is relevant to their age group. Why I should finish my vegetables. Why is mushroom a killer. What to do with the class bully. Why I should stay in bed when there is noises coming from my parents room. You know, things like this.

There would also be fun parts that consist of puzzles and games. Just so that the kids are drawn to the papers.

Anyhow, I aint much of a writer and not at all a biz person. So if someone has the capability, I hope he/she takes this idea and introduce it for all.

My ladies (part 2)

Well its been eons since I wrote anything here. Strangely I am inspired by a funny conversation while on lunch. We were comparing about our old phones and my colleagues were amused that I never own a Nokia.

I showed them this blog post and instantly I am intrigued to update it. And yes there is still no Nokia (sorta)

My ladies having no constraint of camera (Yeps no longer at a defence company then) have also became a lot smarter... so to speak. Yes the Apple iPhone has came and I decided to venture with the Androids.

The first is a Legendary beauty. The HTC Legend. She was tough with a full metal enclosure. When I dropped her, the floor tends to have a tiny dent.

There is one minor problem. She has a buck tooth. Having said that, I din mind it one bit.

The second is also from HTC... I must have a thing for Taiwanese girls perhaps. I gotten HTC Legend at $0 cost and managed to trade her in for $50. Not a bad investment. So came HTC One X. With something call Beats audio. 

Till this day, I wonder why the "feature" simple make music louder. Anyway she din last me as long as I hope. Phone aint built for IP rating then and I gotten her wet. Yes wet. YES quite WET.

So in my depression, I had to have a new phone. I pop by Mobilesquare and paid for a phone without a contract. To be honest, I could have signed a contract then, but the Telco decided to stop offering 12 GB of data. I am a heavy user with an average of 8-10 GB of usage per month. 3G of 12GB beats 4G of 3GB anytime.

I set my eyes on my first Phablet, the Korean Samsung Note 3. I find the stylus to be the best part. I could actually take some notes. And I almost never use it. 

Anyway its been 3 years since I bought it and it has weathered through with dents and cracks. 

I am in the market for a new lady. I had wanted Note 3 younger sister, Note 7. But apparently she has an explosive temper. Seeing there is little worthy substitute, I might settle for a Chinese chick. 

She seems to have everything I want and is dirt cheap. I just hope she aint secretly eyeing my CPF. 

Cooking notes

Well I gather that there is no more any visitors to my blog.
As such this will become my log to compile all my cooking notes

Pork Burger
http://goodyfoodies.blogspot.sg/2011/02/i-cooked-homemade-pork-burgers.html

Preparation time: 5-10 minutes
Cooking time: 12-14 minutes
Makes 2

Ingredients
250g pork mince
1 small onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely diced
2 tbsp sweet chilli dipping sauce
3 tbsp of fresh breadcrumbs
1 egg yolk
A pinch of salt and pepper
1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
2 burger buns

Direction
Mix and cook



Chocolate Lava Cake
http://www.noobcook.com/chocolate-lava-cake/

Preparation time: 15-20 minutes
Cooking time: 11 minutes
Makes 3

Ingredients

100g dark chocolate (example, Cadbury Old Gold 70% cocoa), cut to small cubes
100g unsalted butter, cut to small cubes
2 eggs
50g caster sugar
20g self-raising flour


Directions
1. Melt dark chocolate and butter using either the microwave 

2. In a large bowl, use an electric whisk to beat the eggs and sugar till the mixture turns pale and frothy. This will take a few minutes.

3. Pour melted chocolate/butter you prepared in step 1, into the egg mixture prepared in step 2. Stir in the flour. Use a spatula to mix everything evenly.

4. Grease your ramekins with some melted butter (so that the cake will come off cleanly when it is baked). Fill the ramekin almost 3/4 full with the chocolate mixture and bake in a preheated oven of 180C (356F) for about 11 minutes. 

movie script idea

Ok bear with me on this. I had this thought while taking the cramp train from work and I tot it would make an excellence movie.

Intro
Guy with wife and young kids. Everything good in his life. Then suddenly kanna accident. Ended in comma.

Rise of zombies
Some decades later, an unknown virus began infecting humans. And the became mindless zombie. Unlike the other zombie flick, these zombie aint stupid. Not those that would rush and chew. They are smart enough to run away when something goes bad.

Rise of machines
Machines were created to tackle the zombie issue. these biomechanical robots were so effective in dealing with the zombies, that zombies ended up hiding away. It din take long before the machines became sentient and sense that the humans are fearful of their effectiveness and seek to shut them down.

World war 3
Human began a pre-empt strike to take down the machine mother. some power mainframe la. it reacted by deeming humans as a potential zombie and commence warfare. this resulted in heavy loss to both sides, with zombie coming in to complicate things for the humans. It ended with borders to ensure peace to all. But tensions are ongoing

awaken the main protagonist
Within the borders, a bio-mechanical robot was attacking the zombie fraction and was alerted to see the humans. Human respond with attacks and chase it away. While the robot retreat, it saw a girl and froze. system error. Human then manage to seize this robot and take it back to their camp. Back at camp, they open the machine to get the spare parts and found a human body attached to it without any limps. Its eyes were closed with wires coming out of its brain.

The robot awaken and began killing, but when the girl appear again, it stopped. unknown why. the robot sees memories of its past and realise that it has been robo converted. the girl was his granddaughter whom look like his daughter.

It was then learnt that during the wall, the robots taken over a hospital that holds coma patients. and decided to bring them back to study human better. these human machine were more effective in killing as they were able to make creative deadly decisions. as such 100s of them were formed. they are part man and part machine now.

So now the main man, received calls from his master and directed him to go back. he over rides it and knew he has to end the war. so a renegade team is form that managed to sneak them into the main base.

As he fights his way thru, he faced off with newer machines that has zombies in them. They are far more deadly but has a witness that they desire to kill humans only. SOOOO he managed to win somehow.

As he approaches the mainframe, he is confronted by a higher level robot. It has both zombie and human attached to it. And the human is no ordinary human, but the president.

story goes that during the zombie infestation, the president was the one whom release the machines. He gotten scare and decided to terminate them, but they saw this first and captured him first. He was the first human machine and became part of the collective. it can be seen that he is not alone and was in fact in a room with 5 others. with 3 of them being zombies. The zombie collective wants to kill humans and the human collective is killing zombies. the collective doesnt see the protagonist as a threat as he is one of them.

he resent it and began fighting, but ultimately loss and died.

the human renegade see that they are losing, resented to fate and just then the zombies appeared and started attacking. zombies still see themselves as humans and wanted to end the machine wars.

and as i mentioned the zombies aint stupid, they were building military effort all along. and yes they won. as the human and zombies looked at each other, they know the next conflict is not far away. and the story ended.

the president then recap that the machines were part of a war effort that needs endorsing. when a parasite mutated and created the zombies, he used it as a leverage to go out on war. should effort be spend on cure, the infestation would have been controlled.  

Looking back

6 months have passed. I knew it as my workplace has asked me to change my password once more.

Looking back, this past 6 months have been a mixture of excitement and challenges. I am grateful to have left the awful SME and landed into this secured location.

Nevertheless, I have friends from my old place who are still holding the fort. They were shopping around and I could see that the job market is not rosy as before. I do hope they are able to find somewhere stable soon. After all, staying there any longer is a headache.

I looked back regularly to assure myself that I made the right choice to leave. Reading the latest financial report issued has certainly gave me assurance. No new revenue this FY, no profit and increase in losses, law suits growing and general "forecast" of new revenue in the next FY.

It is not amusing to see that the company is crumbling. Lies and living in past glories have led the employees to hope for a better tomorrow. A tomorrow that may never come.

At my new position, I have seen some products and solutions that could have been my previous place product and solution. Perhaps they have not given enough thought on challenging other sectors. Perhaps they simply believed that the money is not worth the effort. Perhaps simply because the leader is too blind to lead.

In any case, I hope for my friends to find a new beginning soon.

Ideas on Cafe 2

Just today a colleague bounced off an idea with me. Its exactly the same as my Beer kitchen idea. He jioed me to join in if he starts one. I am fairly interested and would likely contribute.

Anyway to continue my list of ideas

5. My Best Friend and me. A place where you can bring your dogs to dine with. There would be extensive menu for dogs, while the human will only a menu with selection of Hotdogs. The place will be an opened area to allow the dogs to smell each other butts. However if you have an unfriendly pooch and Cesar Millan aint on duty, you can opt for a private area.

PS. No cats allow

6. well to be continued

Ideas on cafes

I long harbour the thought of having my own cafe one day. After all, I do like to enjoy drinks with my good old friends and it be a perfect opportunity to waste my time away.

Sadly there are way too many things holding me back. I need this job to pay my bills and cant risk it going away. etc etc etc. So the possibility of me having one started would be next to zero in this couple of years.

What I could have is to throw out several ideas I have been holding onto. If someone steals it, make it a success, I would be happy for that person. Goes to show, my ideas would work.

1.  Cafe Top Ten. It will serve only 10 dishes, with 2 less popular dishes eliminate weekly and replace by 2 new dishes. A giant chart will be shown and votes comes in the form of orders.

2. Beer kitchen. You get to mix and brew your beer, cider, etc there. You paid for ingredients and the kitchen keeps the beer for you. When you collect, you get a table to share it with your friends and bring home the remainder in bottles. For the ATAS group

3. Laser Tag Pub. Just a pub that gives you free laser tag games when you buy a specified amount of drinks. AND a laser tag gaming arena that rewards the winning team with drinks ( loser have to buy them a round). Kinda like a biz that supported by a companion biz. Oh and the games are live cast in the pub. I must add that this target audience are NS ppl :)

4. Mircowave me. A DIY place. heh. Well its simple. Its a canteen layout and all food are in microwave containers. You choose what you want, pay for it and self cook. Now here is the kicker. There is NO ONE working there. Food are replenished at certain hours and you do everything yourself. The target is mostly people who eats alone. Those who are looking to fill up and run off. Its open 24/7.

Ok I got a few more and would probably pen it in the future.

PS. If you did found success with my ideas. Do buy me a drink.

Work Life balance

Its been too darn long since I wrote anything here. I hate to admit, but its largely becos I am busy with work.

In my years of working, I am almost never this tied down before. At my first work place, I could cramp all I need to do in a few hours and slack the rest of the afternoon. Well thats a maintenance role and nothing to do, is consider a good thing to have.

At my 2nd work place, I was sweating endlessly from all the site work. However when I know that the Coy is crap and cheating ppl, I decided that enough is enough. I aint going to lose sweat for them no more. I found a new place and chill out for the remaining weeks there.

At this current place now, I am packed till 7pm daily. Its amazing how time flies by when I am rushing through reports. When there is a call for lunch going out, I noticed that 4 hours has been burnt and my stomach is crying for food.

I must say, I do like this busy lifestyle. It gives me purpose. It gives me drive. And most of all, it allows me to value the free time I have left.

grin

To throw or not to throw

Its been almost a full month since i moved to my home nest. The reno took a while to complete. The cleaning and touch ups left me sweaty and tired.

Then comes the big move. Stuffs from my in laws place were quickly packed into boxes and brought over. Boxes were opened to be unpacked and this repeated.

 When all is done, what i need are finally in placed. The clothes are on the racks. The furnitures are delivered and placed. Even the appliances are delivered and properly installed. I could not be happier. However there is one thing left to do.

 I need to bring over my Memories from my parents place.

I bought boxes and more boxes and there never seem to be enough. I opened up stuffs that i tot i could never find again and relish the moment. I flip thru old mags that has my younger self there and he looks skinny. I see some faces that are familiar but have absolutely no idea who they are now.

 All the history was lying in my room all this time and i never bother to look at them. Its then i have to make a decision. What can i bring over. And what to do with the rest.

Some old school notes were the easiest. Just throw i said. Some old broken toys were also discarded though i had to say my farewell to them first. I then stopped to think. I have to decide what is sentmental to me and draw the line.

 Its not easy.

I took weeks to decide and pack them neatly. Into boxes i see myself playing tetris to fit them as tightly as possible. If they can fit, i shall bring them over. And so this ended 2 weeks back. With me moving my life over.

 The discarded items did not go down the chute. I firmly believed in recycling and made the effort to brng them to the right bins and placed them correctly.

My family and wife found me odd. But i know that this effort now is for my kids future. The memories are now neatly in boxes in my storeroom. I do know i may never look at them till the turn of the decade, but i just want to ensure that they are kept safely.

The leak

I been planning to leave my company for a couple of weeks now. Only my closest colleagues (whom have similar intentions) know about this.

Just last friday, my current boss RW asked if I could help out with another project. As I respected him well, I informed him that I intent to leave and it is not wise to bring me over. He accepted it and hope I can stay at least till the end of the current project.

And then this afternoon, my former boss, L, asked me to join him for a chat. I smell something is wrong.

Just before this, I met up with my new COO, RM. Its his first day and he wants to get to know everyone. The previous COO, G is on 3 mth notice and I am happy to see him go. Dun get me wrong here. The bad place I am in, as cheated of his time and money.

G was brought over as COO after my fat boss wanted to buy over his coy. It din go thru due to cash flow problems. So as such, they been trying to get rid of him for months. G has not been given any pay for 4 mths and been bombarded with questions at every issue.

G took it bravely but know that his days here are numbered.

Anyway, L asked if I was unhappy with my current role and seek to bring me back to his team. I asked him what this about and he said he learned that I have intentions to leave. I openly said its true and he was surprised. I told him that there is no point in gg over his side. After all, the reasons for my leaving is the same. (I told him abt the lack of operating fund. The only reason I held back is that I hate that fat bastard)

L wants me to think it thru and I said I will. But well, my mind is made up. Thinking back, RM was saying things like the coy is very happy with my work here and hope to give me more opportunities. I now smell a rat. They are playing this game to keep me.

What is interesting is that I realise now that this is just a scheme. G is leaving and is likely to bring with him a few staffs whom respected him. I am guessing, they are sounding me out if G is intending to poach me. Perhaps they want to use it to play him out and deny him his pay.

Its my guess and I got a feeling, I aint far from the truth. Now I wonder if RW has leaked this out. If so, I guess he is trying to keep me. If not, it is definitely true that they are sounding me out about the possible poach.

Noguchi Table

Take a good look at this Designer Coffee Table.

Looks damn chio hor.

Very Modern hor.

Now what if I tell you its designed by a Japanese Guy, Noguchi.

I bet you would think that this Jap dude has a eye for simplicity and interesting structure.

Now what if I tell you that this table was designed in 1947. Now, would you believed me?

It is pretty amazing to me that back then, this artist caught an idea and made something that becomes a timeless classic. He probably stand out so much back then that the people around din know what to make of this.

All I know is, I am damn keen to put this in my new place.

Run from the Hippo

I made the bold move last year to leave a comfort zone and ventured out into the open waters. Friends around me had warned me that things out there are different. I was to believe that the sharks are all around and you will likely be bitten from your own kind.

Mentally preparing myself for all this…. Office politics and competitions are impossible to avoid in the private sector. After all I rather have that competitiveness than to be in a organization that endlessly protect the lazy and weak. I always obey the animal kingdom rule. The strong will survive.

I have been out in the shark infested waters for 8 months now and I am glad I have moved.

There was a fair share of people who goes around stabbing backs and some who was bolder (or foolish) to stab while you are facing them. There were plenty of smiling faces who have their hidden agenda. And of course there are friends among them I could trust.

Sadly, I have to find another water body soon. This little pond is running dry of water. Lots of fishes have left and there is a strong chance there would be a drought. On top of that, that hippo in my opinion, is making more and more bad moves. One of which has made me come into conflict with my former colleagues.

I seek to find an ocean this time. Small little ponds have a tendency to run out of water. Hope there is some good news in the coming days.

Privatising

During lunch, a colleague mentioned that the govt made a terrible mistake. They should not have privatise the transports. Giving that the situation now, the govt has to step in to pump in more money in order to keep the fare lows and the bus coy profitable.

However, I think the govt made a bigger mistake. They should have kept transport coy under their wing and should have privatise HDB instead. My colleague was shocked when he heard that.

I laid it out to him. Private coy always look at their bottom line. If they were to build something, they have to ensure they sell it and make money.  If HDB goes private, all developers out there will panic. HDB will go into building not just HDB, but Condos, landed, industrial, commercial etc.

It be the biggest developer out there. As such, all the other developers will have to drop their price in order to compete.

Of course, with HDB being in the private sector, the mass market low cost HDB will be priced higher. BUT the other sectors will drop owning to their entry.

In time to come, some developers will enter into the mass market HDB in order to protect their bottom line. This will create competition that is healthy for the first time buyers.

I guess in the short term, we will see lots of panic and price fluctuation. In the long run, we should see a better controlled property market.

Till then, I guess the govt will have to see if they are willing to let go of this golden goose.

Soccer in work life

Very often you would find reference to soccer in work life. Sometimes the reference is so real, it hurts.

Sales is pretty much like strikers. When they clinch a deal (or score a goal), they are heavily praised upon and rewarded. Whereas the engineers are like the goalkeeper. They do a good job and no one realise. Its only when there is a mistake made (a goal scored) that the engineers get all the unnecessary attention.


1.  All that lessons learn in school (training) have never transferred to real life. The competition will tackle you and you may break a leg.



2.  You are only valuable to the team when the other teams (other job offers) wants you. Its only then that your boss will notice you.

3.  Working hard and long hours doesnt mean you will go home a winner. Often its played on luck and that means being in the right place at the right time.




4.  Everyone gives their 2 cents worth on what you should have done after the match (project) ended and not before.

5.  No one is happy to be substituted.

6.  Fighting among co-workers in front of others are fairly common




7. Staying in one team for good never gets you anywhere. Unless the team you are in, happen to be the top team.Then again, you may still want to leave and go to Madrid.

8. You can expect to work on most weekend. Holidays included.

Hublot watch - Antikythera mechanism

I should really not look at watches. Without fail, I would find something I like and spend the rest of the day thinking about it.

Its like having a massive crush on a girl. Except this could be bought with the right price.

Hublot went about and recreated an ancient mechanism now known as Antikythera mechanism. Its invented in the 100-200 BC to allow the Greek to accurately predict the position of the sun and the nearest known stars (planets).This can be done, simply by turning a single dial.

Now I am captivated by this and dreaming wish I could own this piece of history on my wrist. I think it would no doubt be costly. Hopefully I would struck TOTO one day

The wait for your property

I was rather fortunate. Just last June I made a deposit with a heavy heart. I know I need a home after my wedding. But its impossible to find a place that is affordable and readily available. The HDB launches then are impossible. Our combined income was outside the ceiling. The resale HDBs were scary. COV was averaging at 40K and it aint going to be a location I am happy with.

It took a heavy heart to come to terms that my home would likely to be my biggest investment. Something I would be working hard to pay off.  This would leave little for other luxuries. As I made the deposit, I can only hope for the best. So far, I have not regretted on my decision.

The thing that I was pleasantly surprise was that I would be getting my keys in Dec. Now how about that. A wait of just 1.5 years. Something bearable.

Now if you wondering why I am sharing all these above, its becos of my conversation with a senior colleague. To give you the whole picture, I shall throw some background info. He is single, in his late 40s and is wary about investments.

He said that the PAP Govt (Notice he din said its the SG Govt, but branded it PAP) has noticed that the voters are unhappy. Largely becos of the high cost of owning a property. Well he was partially right. The voters are unhappy for high property cost, but are also upset of the job losses, influx of foreigners, etc etc etc. AS SUCH our PAP govt will control the price of the properties. They even hinted (no reference provided) that in 2014 the prices will drop drastically.

This is something I do not quite agreed. Yes, I aint no soothsayer. I definitely cant predict my stocks portfolio in 2 weeks much less the next 2 years. But I do know that its very hard to bring down the property prices.

Just 2-3 years back when we have the Depression. The one they said would rival the Great Depression of 1930s. Well what happen to our property prices? Interestingly I did not notice a substantial decline.

Private condos that were in the launch phrase did became softer. A small discount was given to entice buyers to come in. And though the showrooms were quieter, the units were largely sold out.

Property developers who were anticipating the crash, immediately withheld all their plans. No new housing were build thus increasing the demand with a even smaller supply. (HDB too reduce their supply, thanks to a smart arse)

Those who owned homes has withhold from selling. The majority could afford to wait out. And with banks giving out a pretty low interest rate then, they are more than happy to. 

Those whom owned properties for rental too were enjoying the low rental rates. They may be the tricky bunch as some may have tenants whom pack up and leave. (forgoing a month of security deposit) However I am sure even with vacant units, those whom could afford to rent them out are able to hold on to them for months and not years.

So what is this trying to tell us? Property is a big investment and most investors are fundamentally able to cope with a short term loss. Despite an economic decline, the price of property may slip a few % but generally would stay strong.

Now let me use another way to explain this. A majority of our savings are tied up in our home. This is our prime investment where it takes years to pay off the banks. If a substantial drop (lets say 20%) is to occur, plenty of us would be cursing that we are paying more than what our home is worth.

Banks will be wary of this as well. Any bad debts would mean that the unit they be repossessing is worth less than the loan. A good amount of paper value would be wiped out if that is to happen.

Soooo do I think that the property price would drop? Well NO. I have seen the past data when I was looking for a home during the crisis. I saw a dip and not witness a drop.

Personally I think our Govt hands are tied. The only thing they could do is to stabilize the pricing and build affordable HDBs for young couples.

PS. I doubt the Govt would cut the price of new HDB by half, unless they are keen to piss off all the surrounding neighbors and developers. If a new 5 room unit cost 200K, all surrounding older unit, would have their prices drop. And these are the ppl whom has paid 500K for their unit years ago. Imagine the paper loss.

Home project

Just a couple of weeks ago, I received a surprise call from my lawyer. He has called to informed me that I be getting my keys to my new home in Dec, this year. Now this is a little shock to me. The developer has kept the TOP at Dec 2012 and even counting in the time buffer they put in and the speed of construction, I had only assumed that I could collect my keys in early half of 2012.

So with my mouth wide open, my heart skipping a bit, I shared this news with my wifey. She too was taken aback. Both of us are excited by this news and it became apparent that we need to get some planning done.

First off, I called 2 of my Bros. Mr B who is in the flooring biz and is setting up work on home interior design. He has assured me that he would help me to look into carpentry and necessary painting and flooring.

Next I called my Mr N, who is in the lighting biz. He invited both us to drop by his showroom and we have found a couple of lightings we fancy. We even found that he has products on ceiling fans and would be considering them as well.

Furnishing is the next step and we dropped by Furniture Mall yesterday to take a good look. I must say, 3 hours is not sufficient to cover the whole place. We spent most of the time in the first 2 floors and have only swing by the 3rd for a quick look.

Looking at the possible cost that we would arrive at, I must say I am glad that we are financially prepare for this. It feels like I have taken a whole year of my income and gave it to all these groups of ppl for a swell looking home.

Nothing in life is cheap nor easy. One has to be prepared for the worst and planned for the best. (This means I wont have to go ahead with my EU 11 plan)

Pet tracking idea

This all happen relatively quick. Got a fren who is into a biz that provides vehicle tracking services. I remarked to him that he has a brilliant product and there is plenty of opportunities he could explore.

And then he enticed me.

He asked if I wanted to go over to help him out. He is in need of people to help him grow his biz and is relented to trust just about any one.

Honestly I am flattered and strongly tempted. The idea of being in a small startup and the ability to help it grow, greatly entices me.

Sadly I told him that I could not afford to do so. I am pegged down with commitments and would need the dough. He understood where I was coming from and we kept our friendship professional.

When an idea pops up, I would share with him about the possibility of using his tracking services in this new area. He would give me an opinion if it is feasible or not. Recently I came up with the idea of Pet tracking and shared with him immediately.

What I din know was that he has already ventured into that field. The only problem was, this was carried out in another country and not SG. He asked if I was keen on it. If so, I could be his reseller. All I would need is to register a legal biz entity and signed with him a reseller deal. I would price the product with a mark up and proceed to sell it in my own capacity. I am fairly excited and have been considering it since.

I aint keen to just jump straight into it. I need to see if there is market potential for this. What I do know is that my risk would be small. The startup capital would be affordable and I just need to the energy and time to market this (online stores and such).

I guess I would make my decision shortly. If its worth a shot, I should be waiting for the cows to come home.

Awake? You might just be sleep walking

Every work day I followed a fixed routine. Alarm ring, put to snooze, got up, turn on the heater, grab the papers, boil some water, go back to bed, alarm ring again, curse, silent alarm, shower, make breakfast, read the papers and run off in a daze to work

It’s the same routine that repeats endlessly. Something I could practically do without any thinking. I bet I could even close my eyes while doing it. But it wise to keep my eyes half open at least. Wont want to walk into the balcony thinking its my shower.

Now I don’t dread on the routine in my daily ritual. After all, I been experimenting and found it to be my most effective routine to get all the above done in an hour and reach work on time. What I do dread is going to my workplace and do nothing more but routine work.

I have spent 5 years in an establishment that limits my creativity and growth. A well structure organization that prevents one from getting work done quickly. Everything has to follow a fixed and meaningless structure. Slow and steady to win the race some might say, leaving my mind to become dumb and numb.

And then I had enough.

My bags were packed and I left to enter a whole new environment. The dangerous realms of the private sector. The place where public servants are told endless stories of back stabbing, bodies dumping and promiscuous relationships. Ok the last one may not be that bad… I kid.

It has been a couple of months now and I never felt better. I have faced many challenges in this period of time that makes my daily work seem non routine. I gotten to do marketing, a chance to sniff out competitors’ products, provide some cut throat strategy and secured a deal on my own. And to think I only have an engineering background.

Such is the hunger that I now have, I am craving for more. I am on a lookout for a good deal and to build my networks. I foresee that this would be necessary for me to achieve greater success in the future. Like Steve Jobs once said, you cant connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect the dots looking backward. You just have to trust that those dots somehow connect in your future.

I know for sure my future lies in those dots I have created now.