Goodbye 2006! Welcome 2007!

As the year 2006 is coming to an end, I think it is meaningful to recap the key events of this roller coaster year for me and for those who are close to me.


Jan/Feb' 06
- realised that my lady was pregnant again (with Rayden)
- celebrated Ryanne's 1st birthday

- happiness was shortlived as, Ryanne past away few days later



Mar'06
- went over to China for a trade fair with my Dad

May'06
- went over to China again, this time with Alex and stayed over at his apartment (hee... free)

- shop hunting, and found one

June'06
- wrote my virgin blog
- world cup fever

July'06
- grand opening of shop

Aug'06
- Rayden was born! .. so was Rachel (shon's bb) in fact, a day apart only

Sept'06
- Reservist - siong siong ATEC included
- Sherilyn (jw's bb) was born

Oct/Nov'06
- China trip again, this time met up with an army friend who runs a logistic firm
- gahmen announced GST to be increased to 7%... tew!
- 子敬 (ang's bb) was born

Dec'06
- planning for my next business trip in Jan'07
- recapping 2006...

anyway... cheers to all (ok lah... don't think there's alot of "fans" but at least got a handful lah!)who read this blog.

Best wishes for the new year!
hakkaboyz

Rayden - 4 month old baby

Dear Rayden,

Your routine is getting pretty stable now and we more or less know what you want when you fuss and make noises. Clever right?

0800-0830: wakes up, pee&/poo, bathe
0830-0930: drink milk milk, play and gets ready to go to the shop
1000-1800: In the shop - sleep, wakes up, *pee&/poo, *drink milk milk, play... this routine repeats itself
1900-2100: Back home - cleaned up, * pee&/poo, * drink milk milk, play, wind down for the day and sleep

0000-0100: sometimes, wakes up for anther feed

whatever happens later than that, is a mystery. Ask your mummy. But I'm always very curious how you end up next to me when I woke up in the morning...

Love you,
Papa

* note - this can be interchangable and it may happens at the same time.


flapping your arms and kicking wildly - means:
you are very excited and want to play some more; also means, it'll be more fun if you can pick me up









prone position looking into the camera - thinking: hey! why am I in this position again?! and why you keep aiming that thing at me?

子敬's full month celebration on 17th Dec

Look! Little 子敬 has grown quite abit, hasn't he? Sorry for the late post on this... better late than never.

It was a busy busy day for Ang and Qiqi for there's lots of guests on that day.... but can see that they were very very happy!

Welcome on board to this long, eventful and exciting journey of parenthood, guys!

Lancerlord is back!

I suspect Lancerlord read my last posting... He's found or rather .... back. Welcome back, Lancerlord.

Finding Lancerlord

I noticed that lancerlord's last entry was back in 25 Sept 06. Wondering what had happened to him? I was inspired by him to blog in the first place... Did he changed his car? Since his name was inspired by his car, a Mitsubishi Lancer. So went to google and checked for... hondahunk... toyotaking...etc... but was unsuccessful.

Remembered that he has a flickr site where he kept his photos. Went there and found out that his last update was very recent, in December. Felt alittle relieved that this old friend is still alive. Maybe just busy... or very very busy?

Update your blog leh, lancerlord!

Concert ABC

Went for a free concert few days ago... complimentry ticket given to me by the hairdresser next door to our shop. I believed her sister works for Singtel or something.
陈升, 品冠 and 五月天 were the performing artistes.




把悲伤留给自己 and 风筝 sound familiar? Yah... those were just a couple of the great songs belted out by 陈升. He is a solid performer and he entertained the mass audiences even though he knew most of them were here for the latter performers.
The songs from 陈升 were the only ones I can sing along and relate to.... Seriously, I'm getting old. Those little girls behind me thought so also.

Ang and QiQi's lovely baby

Welcome to this world, baby 郑子敬! I think the meaning of the name is that - son must be filial to the parents... something like that.

This picture taken a few days after birth and he should be bigger now, i think. We'll see ... coming 17 Dec, the full month celebration.

See you soon, Baby Tee!

Botak Ray

Dear Rayden,

We gave you a new hair cut on Sunday. It's a combine effort from 婆婆, mummy and papa. That's why I use "we".

Not bad huh for non-professional people like us, but ... no... no... don't look behind.... not our fault, Rayden. Who ask you keep moving...

Love you always... no matter what hairstyle you have,
Papa

Good news for civil servants!

Saw a piece of good news on Saturday newspaper 25 November 2006 "Civil service salaries likely to go up. Pay must be kept competitive to get and keep talent, say Teo Chee Hean"

How nice...

What a coincidence... Just when they have announced that they are increasing GST to 7% next year to help the poor. Hmm... makes me wonder who are we helping actually? What is the definition of poor? Is our civil servants, which include ministers, lowly paid?

Well, civil service pay has to go up because of private sector competition mah... And yes, Mr Teo also mentioned that ministers's salaries, which are also pegged to the private sector would be adjusted. He said:" The formula is a well-established one, we will have to look at the benchmark to see where they are, see what kind of adjustment we need to make... "

Aiya... Like that they lugi... if they benchmark with their peers in other countries, must take pay cut you know... what?! No?! you mean they do different benchmarking? Oh I see... Tsk Tsk... I smell some fishy smell...

A visit to the Paediatrician in Rivervale Mall

Dear Rayden,

We brought you to Dr. Lillian Lim, a Paediatrician in Rivervale Mall this morning. Not that you are sick or anything. Just that mummy felt that it's time for a PD to check you up since the last time a PD actually saw you was when you were only a few days old.





Boy! You are 7.5Kg! Your sister was 7.5Kg when she's 1yr old. Dr. Lim mentioned that it's ok even though you are actually at the 90 percentile of the growth chart, as some babies' growth rate will taper off when they get older. We mentioned about your sister's condition and her passing. We felt that she didn't react negatively and was very reassuring to us that you are ok. Your physical development is fine... your neck is quite firm, head control is ok, eyes are following moving objects ...etc. Mummy took the chance to ask her lots of things like your bowel movements, your sweaty palms and feet...etc. Dr. Lim was very obliging in answering all the questions that mummy had and that impressed mummy a lot.

Overall, it's quite a pleasant trip to The Kid's Clinic. Hope you'll continue to grow well and be happy!

Love you,
Papa

Did she or did she not remember us?

Today we went to TMC to visit Qiqi. She gave birth to a lovely boy yesterday (ok, we didn't manage to see the baby in person but we saw the picture stored in the mobilephone. Thanks to the friendly nurse who didn't fulfill her promise to push the little one into his mummy's ward) She looked tired for obvious reason but ok lah... finally over.

We were wandering around the 5th floor trying hard to peek into the nursery but we didn't manage to see her baby. Instead we spotted a familar face. We saw the gynae who delivered Ryanne. We went up and said " Hello Dr. Sim!" She smiled and returned her greetings. She asked us how we are and stuff like that... The thing is... we didn't tell her about Ryanne. We didn't know how to put it across... We didn't know whether she remember us in the first place. I guess this will remain a mystery and only she has the answer...

Regular shit

I have to shit daily. Every morning infact... straight after breakfast. Dad used to say I'm useless... since I - 吃了就放... It has became a habit I guess... but I think, this is a healthy habit. If this routine is halted for whatever reason, I'll feel damn strange throughout the day. That's why during our 3 days 2 nights excursions while serving NS... I always low morale wan...

Jokes aside... this lead me to wonder whether Rayden's doing fine when he doesn't shit for a week. Yah. Rayden shit weekly. My lady's theory is that her breast milk is "perfect" for him... thus, no waste. I don't know, really...

This few days had been exciting for us. Rayden's shitting everyday in the afternoon. We thought.. " Wow! That's amazing!" We believed it's due to the oats that my lady's been taking daily for breakfast. And btw, before I forget... don't ever buy the Pampers - Baby Dry. Yes... only use it when you know your baby's gonna be dry. Bloody design problem. Your babies waste will basically flow out of it. And it'll be bloody messy, I can asure you. I know. Been there, experienced that. Shit happens... whatever.

My van's number plate fell off today during heavy downpour and there's partial flooding at the exit to Punggol from TPE. Shit happens.

3 things to mentioned here.

1. How come can flood wan? Nobody clear the leaves from the drain or wat?
2. How come the number plate can drop off wan? Why the number plate not secured by screws?
3. I noticed that my friendly neighbourhood cleaner is still cleaning the multistorey car park with his water jet... while it's storming outside. Good work ethics.

Whatever lah. Shit happens... regularly.

A hard pill to swallow

Our PM has announced that the GST will be risen to 7% (up from the current 5%) from next year onwards.

To me, it's a hard pill to swallow. Especially so when we have just invested heavily on our family business. All our expenses will go up... the cost of our goods will go up... every damn thing will be going up. I will seriously consider incorporating our family business and get it GST registered. Who knows when our dear gahment will increase it to 9% (I don't think they like even numbers...)

The reason of the increase is damn unbelievable... To finance more govt spending to help the lower income. Take whatever you have from the left hand and give some back to the right hand while slapping your backside. So shiok man! Nabeiz... Thanks to the strong mandate shown by 66.6% of the voting public... You made a wright choice...wrong... I mean right choice...

My new phone

I bought a new - made in china - mobile phone for about S$170. Next to it is my old Nokia 3230 which had a LCD problem.

The negative points about this phone are - that there are no bluetooth and IR communication functions. The MMS function apprently needs to reconfigure to the local network - which I have yet to figure out how to. Any smart Alex out there who can advise me on this?

Other than those mentioned, this is a very slim phone, with MP3, MP4, 1.3MegaPixels Camera, and it comes witha very nice sleek pouch. I think... it may be more suitable for ladies though. Ha!

food for thought - part 2

Another phenomenon which I noticed..... many many years back, our forefathers migrated to the south to countries like Malyasia, Singapore...etc to 讨生活... and now, many many years later, their 子子孙孙 are flocking back to China to try to make a living one way or another. So irony...

food for thought - part 1

Just want to blog about something which I noticed while on trip in China. The road condition in Guangzhou is chaotic. Really chaotic. However, I didn't witness any accidents at all. Not that I want to witness one... but I don't believe I can drive there with this kind of road condition. Our road system here is consider damn safe, but during heavy traffic condition, when the cars are crawling... there's still some jokers who like to kiss the front car's backside. So...this lead me to think further...

As chaotic as the environment can be, the people there are very very alert and agile. This could be one of the reason, why the Chinese people there are doing well in terms of business.

Blogging in China

Hi!
Me blogging in China...

Am in China for business. Just finished dinner with my friend Brendon who is going to handle all my shipment needs. Well, only 2 days of shopping and I'm feeling broke. I hope my remainding $ can last me till Saturday.

Well, so long for now cos, my fellow using the terminal next to me is smoking like nobody's business. *cough*... I dun wanna die of 2nd hand smoke.

To my lady:
Sorry for watever happened on that day, and I hope things are fine back home. Kiss Rayden for me. Missed both of you very much.

Are you Ryanne in disguise?

Dear Rayden,

Are you Ryanne in disguise?



Ryanne Chong (17 Feb 2005 - 14 Feb 2006)

- picture taken May 2005









Rayden Chong (20 August 2006 - present)

- picture taken 16 Oct2006









Love both of you,
Papa

See... white tongue!!

Dear Rayden,

Today's the 57th day since your arrival. You are going to be 2 months old soon! You have been a very good and cooperative baby. Please continue to be nice.

Mummy brought you to the polyclinic for the Hep B injection (2nd jab) on 3 Oct and you were 5.3Kg then. I believed you are now around 6kg range. You are having some problems fitting into the size S diapers now. You love drinking milk and at times we don't know whether we are overfeeding you. So from time to time, in between meal time, we gave you water when you feel like suckling. You are not too fussy... so, that's good. Your tongue's white and we are supposed to clean you with some oral gel. We did it once, but the effect's not too fantastic, and we have stop doing it. Or should we continue cleaning for you, for hygiene purposes... we'll see.

You are very responsive now, responding to familiar voices, sound, faces, eyes tracking moving objects...etc. And you smile whenever we ask you to ... ok, sometimes, we forced abit. You are getting used to being proned, although you still complained alittle, we know that you can take it. Your limbs muscles are developing quite well - push and look up (about 3 seconds), kicking (very vigourously).

Ok, I'll stop now as we need to get ready to go to the shop - together.

Love you,

Papa

PSI - Up or Down

People now monitor the PSI level like the stock market.

First thing I ask my lady today is:"What's the PSI level?"

"Drop to 79 from last night's 109" came the answer.

"Really? It still looks quite hazy though...."


A very hazy day... unhealthy PSI level. Better to stay indoors.












Good clear day.... Never really appreciated good quality air till now...

Cannot understand why our neighbour couldn't deal with these forest fires, since it's a yearly event.