1/2 marathon

After years of running 10km, I have decided that I would not run that distance any more. Its time to progress.

I have been running the last 3 races as my frens did not want to challenge a longer distance. This time round, I decided that even if I have to go alone, I would try the 21km.

My personal goal is to just run without stopping. I likely be pacing at no more than 10km/h. With this, I hope to complete in 2hrs 30min.

5 days to go

Honestly I cant wait for this. In a short 5 days, I would be closing a chapter at my ermm first job (honestly I can never be sure this is my first job... There is the pilot stint)

And in July I be starting work at a new place.

Its just brilliant.

Seats

I am months away from getting my new place. (Ok maybe more like a year away)

Nevertheless the kaisu part of me has decided that its time to look at house reno mags and get some ideas from friends.

I chanced upon this website that sells chairs. And it giving me a positive outlook. (YES!)


Though I am a bigger fan of couch, I think I would prefer these chairs instead.

Now comes the question on what letters I should use. WTF? CHAIR? SEAT?

My last 2 weeks

After the letter has been laid and the persuasion given by my boss, my decision to leave here after 5.5 years has not waiver.

Indeed, I am sadden to leave. I have made plenty of frens here and get along well with most people. There is indeed some emotional links that has been rooted deeply. But I know I have to unplant myself and move on. (Ok too much PvZ has lead me to link to plants)

I am a little curious on what the private sector is like. Words has it that its frightening and the FT would do the same for half the price. I guess I would have to see it for myself.

For those who knows me well, I aint keen on being an employee for life. I have aspirations to be my own boss one day. This has been my life long dream where I get to run something. Perhaps it may be a F&B, where I be flipping pratas. Perhaps it may be me setting up a prawn shop (not porn or pawn). Perhaps it may be me running a team with 10 others, aiming to rob a casino with muscle cars. Yep, it could be anything and that day would come.

I shall enjoy the last few weeks of work while I can. Very soon this would all become a past memory

recycle me?

Just this afternoon, I was heading towards the MRT with my dear wife. We spotted an empty plastic bottle with a giant tag that says "Recycle Me".

Pretty interesting I tot. A bottle was certainly looking for some attention. Or was it something more.

I spied around quickly and notice a dude sitting not too far away with those giant inflatable clapper. And to my right a bunch of teens at starbucks staring at the bottle with clappers partially hidden.

I could only imagine the outcome when someone pick up that bottle. These little guerillas will spring into action and scare the person who is trying to do something noble.

This is perhaps why there will always be litter lying around. For we all would fear being single out for doing something that was right and natural.

My wife din quite believed me on this. I dared her to pick it up and she dared me back. Instead we walked away to get some snacks that we so hungrily needed.

blank out shades

Now I find this is pretty useful .... for a shameless politician that is

My last 5.5 years

Its been a great 5.5 years where I am now. Looking back, I could not have possibly imagine that I have stayed this long.

After I left school, I am driven to strive on an engineering job. Something that allows me to put what I learned to good use. Its was a turbulent year in 2005. Economy was getting back on track yet jobs are not readily available.

Armed with only a technical degree and no real working experience, I flipped through many pages of the Recruit and highlighted stuffs that interests me. Over 20 applications were sent in my first month alone. With no replies coming in, my desperation grew along and my preference drop. I began to pick about anything that I could get a reply from.

Just then I gotten a friendly email. Its from my current company and they are keen to schedule a meet up. (Interestingly, I applied for 2 jobs here and both call me up within 2 hours)

I put on my best shirt and tidied up my resume. Met up with 2 interviewers, one is my former boss and the other is my current. We had a good round of discussion and my previous boss highlighted this. This aint an engineering establishment, we do Project Management. I aint entirely sure what this meant back then. Aint Project work similarly to engineering?

They must have liked me. For within a week, I gotten a confirmation and I came down to sign my soul away. A contract term of 3 years was given and I happily accepted. I started work and was happy to learn that most of my colleagues are fresh grads as well.

I was given a big project and gotten acquainted with my new team mate. Soon I began to understand what is project work. Its about time management, resource management, people management and budget management. In short we make sure our supplier is able to deliver the end product to our customer.

There was barely any thing engineering about what I do. And frankly I was disappointed.

I carried on with my work and lasted till the 3rd year mark. I was keen to complete this big project and leave on a good note. Just prior to that, I was informed that I be transferred to another division at the end of the milestone. It got me thinking. Perhaps I should try out another year in this new role before leaving.

That is to be my current role and I survived in it for 2.5 years now. It became more or less like a maintenance job. But once again, the actual work is done by the maintenance agency. I just managed them.

I had planned to leave in 2009-2010. Sadly it was the same situation out there as it was at my beginning. Jobs were few as the economy was hit by the US bad debts.

However, now I gotten an offer. And I am not looking back no more.

(PS. I din expect this post to sound so seriously boring)

Impulse buy

For the longest time ever, I been searching for a decent skeleton watch. I completely din expect to find it at a factory outlet.

It was to be an unexpected find. I brisked into the Fossil outlet with only mins to spare. We had to meet the flight time and were only given 4 hrs to shop. This includes having our lunch as well.

We know from the start that this would not be enough. There were 160 outlets arranged as boutique shops around a massive land area. I estimate that its 50% larger than Vivo.

We were down to the last 30 mins and we have a few more targeted shops to visit. I walked into Fossil for a quick look. Just to be sure that we din miss out on any gems.

Its then I saw this beauty. A round peg in a square hole. A skeleton body with brown strap. An automatic movement. I knew I fell in love and nothing else in the shop matters.

I asked the staff for a closer look. It had a thick body and it was rather large on my skinny forearm. And despite these, I din need to consider again. I want it.

They placed it in a box and gave me the VAT and I made my purchase. I placed it in my bag and endured the long wait on the flight. Its to be a long wait before I could bring it back and wrap it around my wrist.

Its been 24 hrs and the infatuation has not ceased. And it has barely left my wrist alone.

Honeymoon time

I would be gone for a short short while. Dun you miss me. I am sure you wont but just want to say that.

Anyhow, I be heading to Eastern Europe and all I can say is that I have yet to read up on where I am heading.

And yes I know.... I am procrastinating.

Work anger

I am normally a great person to work with, aside from my prankster nature of cos. I dun go about screaming at people or even raising my voice.

However I think I could no longer just keep being nice to everyone. Its beginning to seems like I am a softie. Someone whom can be pushed around with. I get email and calls from contractors to clients and I am always friendly. They can voice out their problems and I would go as far as solving it for them.

Perhaps its time to draw this line. For time and time again, their "problem" appears no more that they aint keen to work on it, and rather have me do it.

And the best part is, the credit is "shared" while the fault becomes my doing. (I guess this is kinda familiar to us all)

Well I have given up on being nice to everyone. Its time to be a FAIR person. Time to award some screaming to bums and idiots. This would give me back my sanity and of course release some steam.

I wont care if you are twice my age or that you hold a rank 3 times above mine. I would probably give you a heart attack cause perhaps you deserve to move on.

Watch out world. I am going to be screaming at you all.

Aviation Tables

If I have the money, I guess I would love to have this as my table.

It would defintely be one reason I would keep me working.

But well reality tends to smack you in the face. My future home is doomed to be small and confine. Nevertheless, you could always look for inspiration with the Japs designed ideas.



I bet this would keep my kids working hard

(Click on the pics for the links)

Happy Easter in advance

I wont be ard this Easter. The first time for me not to attend the easter season.

So well Heres a early wishes for all

Health is important

Just last week, a close buddy of my told me that he has high cholesterol. He is my age, plump and a big smoker.

This made me think, we are just started into our 30s. Still in the prime of our lives and the health issues have begun to creep in. And guess what this is an indication of more serious issues to come. He may be diabetic and may also have heart problems. (I aint wanting to curse him)

I spoke with another close friend today whom also has high cholesterol. His situation is under control now and is able to cut down on his medication. He remarked that I shouldnt be too surprised, that could be lots more whom has high cholesterol. He only found out his after a routine health check.

This is indeed true. My buddy found out his after a blood test was carried out and that was done becos of a separate health issue. Needless to say, I too may have high cholesterol. I just dont know yet.

I indulge in plenty of rich food. I laughed at thought of salad when I could fill the starter with a lovely piece of meat. I love burgers and love steak even more. And I have not carried out a check on my health for the last 4 years. Its time I do something about it.

With an active lifestyle of running and workout, my excuse to myself is that I do burn of what I eat. I shouldnt be too concern right. After all, I am not one of those who sit at his desk all day and go home to eat and sleep.

But well there are many things we dont really know. Things that doesnt relate to our lifestyle. And these things tend to be hidden quietly away and come out as a mean bully only later on.

As such, I am making an appointment to get myself tested. I hope for a good result as I aint mentally prepare to hear something bad now. I guess we can only hope for the best and sorta prepare for the worst.

Sneezy

Happens to me all the time....

In other news, the Japs have found a way to stop a sneeze. Simply press your upper lip with 2 fingers just prior to a sneeze.

Apparently you would stop the message being send to your nose. Dun ask me why, cos it doesnt work on me.

Wedding experience: Finacial Planning

Honestly I am no big expert on the topic financial planning. My biggest expense til date would have been my wedding banquet. And that is one hefty package. So am I the right person to dish out advise. I guess not.

But I do know enough to keep me afloat and get me by comfortably.

If you do a search, you would find plenty of advises out there. Go look up your financial planner (formerly known as insurance agent). They be happy to share with you on their experience. But ermmm be extremely careful with them. They tend to be vampire in disguise.

Among us all, we would encounter those whom "live for the moment". They spend almost as much as they earned. At times spending money they do not have yet. This is definitely not ideal. You never know when would future money stop coming in and debts would always be there waiting.

Just the day after my wedding, my wife and I sat down in our room to open the ang pao collected. We spent plenty of time stacking similar denomination together and then recounted everything again. We need to be sure that these well wishes are correctly tallied.

Throughout my wedding, I had made payment for the majority of the stuffs. I had insisted to my parents that I would be bearing all costs and they need not help me. A large part of me feels that as a son, I should be bearing all the expenses. I would just want my folks to be part of this event.

I had estimated on the total cost of the wedding. Set aside plenty of savings to be used. And when the day comes to make the final payment, I felt a sense of liberation. To me, I have finally clear this last debt. No longer would I need to keep my spending on hold.

Its worth to note that the cost of the entire event aint cheap. If I had not work for at least 3 years, I wont know how am I going to pull this off. Looking at the ang pao collected, you would imagine that this would go back to my personal bank account.

But we didnt.

We decided beforehand that all these would go into our joint accounts. The well wishes given to us by our family and friends are intended for us to be happily ever after.

We opened 2 accounts in our name. One for our housing commitments and another for our other expenses. I taken time to analyze our big commitment. Its going to be a 30 year loan and we would both need to be working to be able to finance it comfortably.

We decided that we would put in our salary equally to our housing account. The amount we gave should be equal to the monthly loan we have to pay. This would ensure that the original amount inside would be left untouched and form our buffer. I estimated that in the worst case scenario where both of us are jobless, this amount should last us 8 months.

On the other account, it is more relax. It could be known as our lifestyle account. We are free to spend from it without cap and top it up at a fixed amount. This would help pay off for our coming renovation works and furnishing. Later on this account would help settle for our future kids expenses and other misc.

The main concept which I had for these 2 differing accounts, is that there would always be a roof for heads, whereas our lifestyle account could adapt.

The crazy thing about financial planning is that, there is no fixed rule. It gets even crazier that the planning is bounded to adapted to the economy concerns.

the return

Hey world. I am back once more.

Its been sometime since I last wrote anything here. The spaces between do feel a little vacant.

My issues have yet to be fully resolved. Such things just need time to work out and I couldnt rush even if I wanted to.

The only positive light is that, today marks the day where there is certainty. The 'unknown' has been revealed. For this, I am now able to return to this semi-private spot to rant on my thoughts.

So stay tune for more postings. I would seek to be less crappy.

Blogging silence

For reason that would be private to myself. I shall retain blogging silent for a period.

I am unsure on when I would return to blogging. Perhaps you should not wait

Wedding experience: The AD PG part 2

Well there is a little good news.

We have informed him that we are not too pleased with the services and felt he could have done better. He has responded positively and agreed that he would be passing to us ALL the photos taken.

Now there is slight hope that from this giant 1000+ collection we are able to dig out more decent photos to compliment the event.

For me at least, I am happy that he has responded positively. It seem to show that he would work something out decent for us.

But on a separate note I had a conversation with a fellow colleague whom gotten married 2 weeks before mine. She has hired a big name to take the pic and has not seen them yet. Partly she is also concerned about it. After all, the famous PG tends to post selective good pic up on FB and this time round, there was none.

I told her that we have to lower our expectation for AD. Unless our pre-wedding shots which has settings, backgrounds, lighting, etc of our choice, the AD is pretty much WYSIWYG.

We are likely to see cramp photos with plenty of relatives. And interestingly they tend to blink when the shutter is opened. We also have kids running around in the background that simply cant be stopped. Not to forget we have a paparazzi of other "PG" whom crowd out everyone view.

Without any control on how the shots would come out, and also no retake (I only have 1 church march in), everything is pretty much left up to chance.

I hope her photos turned out well. But would like to say this to all, we have to lower our expectation down 2 levels. So long as the Photos captured the memories and presence of my friends and family, I wont complain much more.

Wedding experience: The AD PG

For info AD PG stands for Actual Day Photographer

Now that my wedding has passed, I would like to say that this was one bad experience for me.

During our planning stage, we decided that we would seek out a freelance PG. Someone that is not tagged to our bridal studio as the package that is offered tends to be rather expensive.

On the hindsight, perhaps we should. We had a great time with the pre-wedding shots and our PG was fabulous to work with. The only drawback is that we know that the studio would charge us plenty for the photos taken. And we din want to hacker over this with them once more.

SOOO we decided to look for a standalone PG. There are 2 main options. The freelancers and the big names studio type.

The freelancers are a good bargain. They are generally more affordable as there are plenty of them to choose from. The only drawback is that there are so many of them, we had to screen thru plenty of their past works.

The studios ones are far more professional. They would give a clear breakdown on their pricing and as their reputations are at stake, their services and photos are generally of better quality.

For us, our emphasis was not really on the photos (more on the dinner itself). We also feel that the standards of the freelancers and the studios are rather close. We just have to shop around to find one that is available and of a good standard.

After some weeks of looking and meeting up with them, we were fairly disappointed not being able to employ the service of one of them. We like his photos and most of all, like the idea that he is working part-time for some bridal studio. In fact he is quite a candid person. Someone we had a good time talking to.

We thus expanded our search and arrived at another freelancer. He is quite a confident person whose full time job is selling camera equipment and taking photos is more of a hobby. His pics are rather decent and we settled for him.

A week before the wedding he emailed to ask if he could bring along some assistants. We thought that they are helping him with the setup of the shots and happily agreed.

Then comes the AD

Our PG turns out to be a stealth shooter. He quietly walks about and capture the shots throughout the day. The assistant on the other hand were given the task to handle the formal shots. IE the group photos and the tea ceremony.

This worries me then. We do not know the skill of the assistant and whether they are capable enough to take a proper shot.

Oh and I mean stealth is largely due to him keeping quiet. He didnt direct us and leave us wondering what to do next. Simple stuff like how he would like to compose the shots were not addressed. This resulted in some essential photos (group shots, shots at the church, etc) totally left out.

During the pre-dinner reception, I was pretty curious on what he was doing. We were around to mingle with our guests and strangely he was not around to capture many of that.

And then comes the table shots, he left it to his junior assistant to take it. We were made to smile for about a minute when the young chap took 6 shots and calibrate his equipment in between each. There wasnt a cue given that he was about to pull the trigger. So we just held our poses. (PS. I gotten my cousin to tell him off after 2 tables)

Its now a couple of weeks after our wedding and we received the pic in a form of a DVD. Our fears are now realised. There were photos missing, there were pictures that make no sense (not even artistic sense). Its likely the poorer ones are the work of the assistant no less.

Well to be fair, some of the shots which he has taken are rather good. But we felt that important pictures are not ruined by his assistants.

We have raised a concern to him and he is now looking into it. As he has provided us only a small collection of the photos, we are hoping that with the missing shots returned, we are able to evaluate his work fully.

Thinking about it now, part of me regretted choosing him. I have learned that a hobby could not be translated to professional service. If budget was still an issue, I would have look around for one that is working frequently as a PG.

To be safe on this, someone that you have gotten a good recommendation from. Someone whom is able to show his most recent works. Someone whom is able to hold a good conversation with you (This shows how much he is willing to connect with the guests).

We had taken a leap of faith based on his photos, but were let down by his personal service. This is something we could not have seen.

For you guys reading this, its partly, ok mostly a rant. I would advise getting someone you can trust. As the photos taken are the memories of the events. Something to cherish as the years goes by.

Wedding Montage