rough week and stubborn toddler

Work is tough this week. 2 midnight meetings and 3 7am meetings. Had to take theson to thebabysitter early the past 2 days. He seemed ok but thewife is not happy abt my meeting schedule. Well, it cant be helped for now. Hopefully it will improve in the next few weeks.
Went home early yesterday but ended up reading timeline and watching tv. Couldn’t sleep though.
Was planning to skip cooking oats for dinner but theson insisted. Didn’t even fall for my biscuit/cookie treats. Cooked the oats with milk and a dash of sugar. He finished nearly ½ of the bowl.

theson has been quite stubborn this week. the baysitter complained that he is refusing to eat his main meals, spitting out his yoghurt and purposely wetting his pants. i've seen him do all those thing myself when i give him his snacks at home and i usually smack his hand if he starts spitting stuff out of his mouth. thewife calls it separation anxiety. well, he got his act together after thewife sat him down and had a heart to heart talk.
well, overall hes still a good boy comparatively and i still need to learn to be more patient with him.

rain rain on my face

The weather these past few weeks is insane.
Heavy (and I mean, 'horses and cows' heavy..) rain daily but sporadically.
It rains 2 to 3 times a day.

The sad thing is that its pretty warm in the office area. Heard that one of the aircon units failed.
Well, we just have to bear with it for now till someone passes out, i guess....

office teambuilding september 06

We had a teambuilding session last Friday at one of the beach hotels up north. (Hotel? Again…?... yes…sigh....)
Carpooled with kitty and 3 other office folks. I had to drive because the rest of the bums were too lazy. Kitty offered to drive but I wanted to reach there in one piece :-) 2 of the people in the car nearly puked as I was taking the corners on the windy road a bit too fast. :-)
Well, reached the hotel on time at 9am and in time for the morning refreshments.
Played a few games from 1000am til 1230pm, passing waterballoons, building sand castles, obstacle race..etc...yawn....
Had a buffet lunch til 2pm. lunch was not too bad, the fried okra, grilled potatoes and lamb were nice. Dessert cakes were a letdown.
The day ended with the prize giving ceremony. Our team was 2nd and we got a hamper of junk food and biscuits.
Reached home by 3pm and knocked off to sleep.

I just realized that our teambuilding activities are very mild compared to what thewife’s team normally does, paintball, cave exploration,..etc. we need to buck up..

Parking luck

What is parking luck? parking luck is when you go in to a carpark and immediately get a space to park your car.

I seriously have no parking luck at all.
I can never find a parking space when I’m out driving. Either in a shopping mall or in town.
It has been proven so many times already, I’ll be driving in circles for 10-20mins and I won’t find a space. Cars in front and behind me will even get to park before me while i still circle the carppark.
Then, all I have to do is get someone else in the driver's seat and a parking space opens up in minutes. :-P
Sigh....

beach holiday

Went to an island beach resort north of where I am, for a holiday with thewife and theson, a few weeks back.. We took a slow drive 2hour up north to the pier to catch the ferry ride to the island.

We actually even had time to visit thewife’s old university. It was a sort of a pilgrimage for her. She kept having dreams of missing class and not getting enough credit to graduate. We visited her old dorm and cafeteria and walked around for a bit. There was even a deer park and a golf course in the darn uni..!!!!
Throughout the drive up north, thewife was reminiscing abt her time spend during her uni days. About where she used to go eat, how she used to ride her bike from her house to the uni, abt how the bad the bus service is. it was interesting to hear about her uni stories while i drove.. kept me from falling asleep.

We stopped for lunch in one of the small towns and had noodles. Theson was enjoying the ride and the trip and was in the car seat 80% of the time. Very proud of him.
We parked the car near the pier and bought the ferry tickets. It was a 45minute boatride to the island from the jetty on the mainland. Not too bumpy a ride and theson seemed to enjoy the ride. No one threw up :-P. The ferry was pretty packed but we had a row of seats to ourselves.
Once on the island, we spied a KFC (hallelujah…!!!) and we got theson his next meal of whipped potato. We then rented a car and drove to the hotel. By the time we reach the hotel and in our room, it was close to 330pm already. Darn tired..!!

Well, the Hotel room could have been better. No kingsize, no queensize, just 2 singles side by side..:-P It was better than nothing.. the view overlooked a small “pond” and definitely nothing spectacular. The hotel had a nice beach but too bad we only spent like 20min playing with the sand. Theson was actually scared of the waves and sand. City-kids…!!!!

Breakfast at the hotel for the 2 days was the usual American buffet …Beans, sausages, scrambled eggs, juice, muffins, No pancakes though..
Food on the island was in general so-so only.
We mostly ate at Chinese restaurants’ where theson could eat rice or noodles. We got ripped off at a Chinese restaurant near our hotel for dinner, cost us 80bucks++ but for the same meal at a restaurant near the jetty, it cost us only 38bucks. Saw a few italian restaurant but didnt have time to try them out.. :-(

oh yea, it was my birthday as well on the 2nd day.. happy birthday to me...!!!!

Cable car experience was quite exhilarating and well worth the 30min drive from our hotel. Thanks to thewife for sacrificing her fear of heights to accompany theson and me up the mountain on the skycar. Actually, to be honest, ¾ of the way up, I was ready to freak out as well.

Underwater world was only so-so. Sadly, nothing much to shout about.

We bought loads of smokes (for other people), alcohol and chocolates. Clothing was actually quite expensive as well. Didn’t buy much. We did however buy theson a new pair of adidas shoes. I finally had to relent after months of trying to veto it. It was thewife’s call on this one.

Regrets: Should’ve brought more bags to buy more stuff but then again, I would have had to carry them all anyway :-P

The last day there was pretty hectic, we went to the underwater world, went back to the cable car place to buy a shirt, went shopping again for all the duty free stuff, go back to hotel to pack, check-out, return the car and be at the ferry terminal, all in exactly 5hours..pheeew...
The son threw up in the car on the drive back though. He slept on the ferry, so that could have been it.
We stopped by at thewife’s mum’s place for dinner. Reached home at 10pm++ and dead tired. Thank god I was not working the next day.

Overall, it was a tiring trip but enjoyable. (7/10)

the "oldies"

my friends dad suffered and survived a ruptured aorta and kidney failure. he subsequently suffered a stroke, with loss of speech and leg movements. i went to visit him at the hospital yesterday and he looked okay. better than my mum looked when she had her stroke. it struck me also that he has aged a lot. i havent seen him in ages.
i take it for granted that "the oldies" don't grow old but i realise that my dad, mum and aunties have also aged tremendously the past few years.
Need to appreciate them more.

guess who i work for?

2 rounds of "layoffs" and i still have my job. i've lost everybody under me though but its not a real heartache to me. i'm still managing the current projects, give or take. :-)