3 years and 7 months and counting!

i not very artistic la hor… so ish everytime use back pixie and lupin peekture hehe

Its been long…

Its been a very long time. I think many (not that many anyway)  have taken my site to be dead; it nearly is. But im struggling to keep it alive. perhaps not as a blog blog, but maybe as a photo blog mostly, with a few entries on my thoughts.

As we grow older, we see more things, and maybe for me I talk less. so that’s how this place is going to be. I’m sick of the colors, so i’ll change it (along with the “small cat” in a big world - hahahaha). I love taking pictures, and hope I have the time to take more pictures to post them here.

Work has been… beyond words. Tiring, fulfilling, tiring… how i wish i can go travelling. or a long sleep. i truly need a break.

40th monthsary and Zhou Xiao Lun

Yesterday was our 40th monthsary It was a simple monthsary - no special dinner (well sometimes simple things are nice… lol) . just a lunch, then followed by a trip to town to shop for my CNY clothes, and then an early dinner.

And of course, a date with Zhou Jie Lun. Not with me, of course. Elaine had a ticket courtesy of Rong ma. Lucky her. she was going to watch it yesterday night at the Indoor Stadium.

And so the day started with lunch at Botak Jones. Cajun chicken with less fries and more coleslaw. Something we had not had in a long, long time. After which we took a bus down to orchard to shop around for my CNY clothes.

And i can tell u, it is really hard to find CNY clothes. Especially when its a guy’s (considering there are so many lady boutiques around compared to men’s), especially when its my built (skinnier), especially when its gotta be CNY color, especially when its got to suit my taste. All in all, when u are trying very hard to find something, high chance that u will encounter difficulty in finding it

after two hours, we still can’t find what i wanted, so decided to stop over at Hip Diner (by Billy Bombers) at Cineleisure to have an early dinner first. American style, the food was not that impressive, and the portion was small. managed to get our stomaches filled thou. And quickly we trotted over to Robinsons, where eventually we managed to find <i>one</i> teeshirt. good enough la. needed that to appease my mum, otherwise she’ll just keep saying why i dun have CNY clothes. that had gone on for a couple of years already.

And after that task was done, we went over to Somerset MRT to wait for Rong ma. She was so excited about the Zhou Jie Lun concert, and i could almost feel her excitement. Except that probably I wasnt going -_-  and they keep telling me to accompany the to go Kallang -_- lol… which eventually i did not went home and had dinner alone. lol.

possibly i would have accompanied them if they had given me one of these…

haha!

Mr Q and Pineapple tarts

Its been damn long again since I last updated. Several things happened:

•  I renewed my domain and webspace.
• Pineapple tarts sales has started! and closed. Thanks for the support!
• Mr Q has done its maiden “flight”.

As with every year in NI, NI Days is a term that one can only associate with: stress, stress, more stress, fighting, survival, digging your own grave, slog, burn midnight oil, suffer together, etc etc… I guess only as AEs we can feel what does it really mean to put in so much effort for the single most important event of the year. I think its beyond words. No other dept can understand. Because no one else stays back to do the demos except for us - Countless weekdays evenings and weekends burnt, sacrifices that were made to my girlfriend, my family and my friends - all of this, hopefully will be made worthwhile this coming Friday. And i am thankful Elaine is understanding on this matter. Coz i think not many companies are so shiong. Definitely not government linked companies or the civil service. Private sector… im not too sure about that.

But through all these, I could really see how the AE team bonds together. At least, for those who have been around for a while. Hopefully the new batch of guys will be affected positively by our spirit too. yea. but right now im too tired to think about all this.

Oh ya. just received notice that I will be going Surabaya to hold a one day seminar. Ahhh. My second business trip to Indonesia. Must..brush up my Bahasa Indonesia again.

* * *

Anyway, Elaine and I (once more) embarked on a pineapple tart making journey, due to good response from last year’s customers. Finally i am extending this to my colleagues as well, and response has been positive so far. it will exceed last year’s figures, i believe. sounds great! More tart fun this month after NI Days!  And more time for me to spend with my pixie, especially to make up for the lost time during NI Days preparations.

Everything is going to be over. Soon! Soon!

National Treasure - Book of secrets

Life has certainly been a whirl since the last time i put an entry. The events that took place includes:

1) StandardChartered Marathon 2007

2) Manufacturing Indonesia Tradeshow

3) Watching movies (certainly I exceeded 7 movies/year, which is the statistic for an average S’porean).

I will blog about events (1) and (2). Certainly i will talk about (2), with the nice food in indonesia and stuff (i got a couple of pix to show). omg, the food, so CHEAP and GOOD!!! Bagus lah.

* * *

Work has been picking up, and life is getting more and more stressful and hectic. NI Days  2008 is certainly THE event. AEs are damn shiong… i guess no one can really understand. Work late on weekdays, work on weekends, work on public holidays… the sacrifices we as AEs make, are many. Hope that NI Days 2008 will be a successful one, and AE efforts get recognised.

* * *

Thanks to Zhane, Elaine and I got to watch “National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets” at Suntec just now. He had earlier passed us two movie passes he won. So nice of him. The show was pretty nice, quite worth a watch. The event was hosted by Nuffnang.com. We even saw Michelle (Quek) and her bf. Haha…very outstanding lady.

Anyway, it is Elaine and me’s 3 yrs 3 months together! And counting. :P  Got her a nice calendar with paintings by Monet inside it. Hope she likes this birthday  Xmas present. lol

CIA tradeshow

I bet most of you never heard of this before, but well, its one of those industrial tradeshows that are held at Suntec Convention Centre at regular intervals. For these, my company usually buys a booth of space and we showcase our stuff for the duration of the shows.

Being the AE in charge of a tradeshow is not a simple task. What this means is, you gotta prepare the product demonstrations (called demo from this point on), find the hardware for it, take time off (from ur busy normal support schedule) to do it, coordinate with marketing on demo content and logistics, among other stuff.

And so chance has it that I am in charge of the CIA tradeshow. And recent times in office were really very hectic. it all seem really hopeless right before the very last minute, given the very short amount of time i have. but Elaine and my colleagues helped me a lot and it finally seemed like it would be ready to start on Tuesday.

Came back to office on Saturday morning to work on the demo. It started off at around 10am. Elaine and her mum helped me to buy some plates that i need for my conveyor belt demo. They specially went to clementi central to check out the shop for the plates, and as i needed the plates urgently, they cabbed down to pass the plates to me, and also this too:

its a spongebob tin with popcorn inside! Its not cheap thou… i asked Elaine to get it for me de i can put it on my chair in office, so that when im not around physically, my colleagues can look at the tin for encouragement. Just don’t eat the popcorn inside.

Saturday in office was spent all the way til night. Ken helped me tremendously with the mounting of the camera on the demo, but he had to leave at about 8pm. Which left me only in office. Elaine was so nice to come accompany me, and we ordered some pizza. It was really nice to have someone with you in office, especially your gf. It was the mental encouragement that really mattered. We chatted, laughed, she helped me make some clay cookies (for the demo), and it lasted til…. 4am.

And I tell you, that was a personal record for me. Without Elaine i think i cannot make it thru to the wee hours of the morning. Thank you dear

And just now, I was back at office again to tie up ends for the tradeshow, then went down to suntec to recce the place. Tomorrow will be setting up of the demos. Wish me luck.

My best birthday in my 26 years

and so the title goes.

what started off as a very simple day’s out to visit Kranji farms, followed by dinner in town, turned out to be much more than what I had thought it was. I think I will post the pictures on the Kranji farm trip in a separate entry (in another category of course, thanks to Wordpress). And I’ll reserve this entry to talk about the “dinner in town”.

A few weeks ago, Nonex asked me “where is a good place to have dinner for a group of people?” coz she said her cousin’s getting married and wanted to treat the brothers and sisters.

I thought nothing of it.

Then a week ago, Elaine talked me into going to Kranji farms, and a “dinner in town”. It was to be on a Saturday, which was yesterday. Due to work, I wanted to push back the dinner to Sunday. and she “flared” up, and said firmly that we should have it on Saturday. So i said ok, I will adjust my work.

I thought nothing of it.

Then yesterday, after the Kranji trip, we caught a bus to town. First we stopped at Bugis to buy some stuff, and then we hopped over to Plaza Singapura. I was asked by Elaine “what is your ideal birthday?” I thought about it for a while and said

“A gathering with my family, you and my friends. Presents or not it does not matter. 人来就好.”

Then she asked “If you have a birthday cake, would you like chocolate or fruit?” I replied

“Fruit cake”.

And I thought nothing of these (at this point in time, I was dozing off in the bus and probably couldn’t harbor any suspicions).

And even though Bugis has an Ajisen Branch, I thought that Elaine liked the Plaza Singapura Branch more, so we never went to the Bugis one.

And I thought nothing of it.

Elaine borrowed my handphone coz she said her handphone’s very low batt. She then begun furiously tapping away SMSes.

And I thought nothing of it.

And then when we reached Plaza Singapura we bumped into Momo and his gf Michelle. they said they wanted to eat Ajisen ramen. We told them that we would like to eat too. So lets eat together.

And I thought nothing of it.

And then…

The next few minutes I got a BIG surprise that I have ever gotten in the past few years (as far as I can remember). First I saw a girl using her digicam to take a video of me (effectively blocking out her face), but her digicam kept panning as I walked, so I FINALLY found it suspicious. and i know that’s gotta be Spoilt, coz of her hair. And then…shifting my eyes to my left, I saw Nonex ( -_- unmistakable), and then peeping over the Ajisen menu (with eyes exposed) was Winston.

And then i thought “AH! Justblog gathering? Here? Why were they here?”

And then I saw Jingyang sitting opposite Spoilt (hhhuhhhh?) and I saw Xeldon (actually I guessed, coz he’s Winston’s good friend). And then, I saw Rong ma (huhhh x 2?) and then, at the far corner i saw 99 and xiaomei (so sweet!).

And they were all sitting in one long table.

HUHHHHH?

And the final truth came trickling in, and I’m sure the video Spoilt took can justify, I was not looking shocked outside, but inside me it was really a big surprise. and my first comment was that this was really a strange gathering. lol. coz everyone dun really know each other (there were 4 groups of friends) but they were sitting together, waiting for me to come.

And it was to be, a most memorable birthday, with my wish coming true (read: the question Elaine asked me earlier on in the day), and the cake too (they had a fruit cake, what a coincidence! the question Elaine asked was after Rong ma bought the cake). It was the first time I had a surprise birthday event and its seriously fun!

Thank you guys for coming together and giving me this surprise…and everyone who helped to plan it and kept a secret from me. Words can’t really justify how I felt, so I’ll wait for the pictures to be uploaded first and I’ll add them into this entry.

So “thank you all for coming!” I really enjoyed the company yesterday evening, it was great!

and to my dear Elaine, I love you!

<edit> ok, the photos are in, courtesy of Spoilt:

me and the fruit cake!

Elaine and me

Thanks for coming everyone!

</edit>

What is a star best at?

This weekend started off slightly more special than the last week. Because I heard from my mum that there is a nice shop along upper East Coast Road that sells nice German pastry and bread, I decided to haul Elaine along to check out this place.

Before we set off, we had lunch with her mum at Clementi Central. It was quite some time since we had a meal together, and its quite nice. We then took bus 14 all the way to Upper East Coast Road…

And overshot by 2 bus stops. and it was crossing the road and taking a bus back 2 stops before we saw the place. It’s at 6, Upper East Coast Road for those interested. Occupying the ground floor of a private housing estate.

The Werner’s Oven.

lil’ gingerbread men on the wall

cranberry muffin in the foreground. This is good stuff!

apple cheesecake… abit of disappointment. 

failure : chocolate fudge cake that turns out to be chocolate sponge cake.

But it wasnt all that bad. At least the muffin was a saving grace. Their coffee seems to be decent, too. After our tea, we went over to the bakery section to purchase some bakes.  saw some nice wheat based breads, with lots of grain types in them. I bought a big chunk of bread and some muffins home, got a muffin for Elaine as well. *update: Elaine said the blueberry muffin was good!*

* * *

And then it was, our food hunting trip ended. An airconditioned ride to town was greatly welcomed by us, and we took bus 14, heading down to Plaza Singapura after that to catch the movie “Star Dust”.  To say that movie is good isnt quite right, yet i think it has good entertainment value. In fact I’m more amused by Robert De Niro’s solo dancing scene. I can only sum it up in 3 letters: WTF?

And that ends the time we had this weekend. Sunday was work day, to prepare for next week’s AE conference. And lots more to come. Time to hang in there in the rough.

Conversion to Wordpress

A little late on the bandwagon, but I have finally converted to wordpress! The main reason for doing so was the ability to categorize my entries, e.g. photography, daily rants, etc. Much neater than using greymatter. Installation wasn’t that hard either. the problem now would be the templates, still have to get used to it before I can start customizing. Looks like it would take a while.

Guess my first task is to migrate my Taiwan pix over here…grouped nicely into its category. Stay tuned!