The Melancholic Friday

Somehow today doesn't feel like it's a friday.
in fact somehow i feel today's a bad day tho i din start e day feeling like this.
it was sometime in e evening when i started getting this whole today doesn't feel like a good day feel.

went to watch cinderel-lah w a fren. we were introduced by a mutual fren.
guess she's isn't too bad. nice pleasant girl. and i get e vibe she kinda likes me.
but i dun feel e same abt her.

on e other hand there's this other girl whom i guess i can say i quite like. we, too, were also introduced by mutual frens.
but somehow i get the vibe dat she doesn't feel e same.

it's kinda frustrating ain't it?
and i think, looking back, i'm always somehow not feeling e same abt the girls who liked me,
save for the one relationship but dat's something else altogether.

i know... i hear some of u saying 'y dun u go tell e girl u like dat u like her and see wad she says?'
but i shy la. i really suck at being able to broach a topic like dat.
i know i suck and damn no guts.

mayb, JUST mayb, dat's god's way of telling me to forget abt the girls?
hmmm... dilemma. dilemma. dilemma.

think i'll juz sleep this off and hopefully when i wake up, it'll all be good again.
BAH!! hate days like this.

p.s. if u know who are e girls i'm talking abt. good for u. if u dun, u can try asking me and i'll see if i'm in e right mood to tell u.

I Am Angry. Hear Me Roar!

Work is a complete mess.
sea trial is on wed and i've yet to start commissioning on this system which is having some problems.
and we're having all these troubles now only because everything got delayed.
the yard took their bloody own time to get my cables run n connected, took their time to prepare my hydraulic system.
i had planned to have started on this system last mon or tue and i din get to touch it until sat.
and now we've run into problems, they're working wo any sense of urgency to get it up n running so dat i can get it ready for sea trials.

and as if dat isn't a big enough problem, more problems have cropped up tonite.
and it's problems dat dun seem to make sense coz all the settings are correct and the wirings are correct. and it seems the problems might be caused by parts which we dun have spare in e sg office. PHUI!!!

i really hope this blows over soon coz i'm sooooo damn sick of it all.
cant wait for 19 nov to come quickly so dat i can leave all the workstuff behind until 2011.
18 more days to tahan. these 18 days are gona seem like 18 months.

ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!

The Weekend Burnt

It's been quite an eventful couple of weeks.
been gng to the shipyard pretty much daily to commission a brand new system on this kiwi research vessel.
but some delays on the shipyard's part has resulted in me having to work thru this weekend so that my system is ready for sea trial by monday (hopefully).

so i'm hoping all goes on smoothly tmr n sunday.

in other news, justin n steph were married last sat at holy spirit church.
it's kinda strange how far this couple has come.
i can dare say i am one of the few ppl who knew both of them separately b4 they somehow got together.
and after years of dating each other, it's finally come to this.
and i'm happy for both of them :D

was asked to be e emcee w nat for the dinner.
was hoping to tell as many stories abt the couple but due to the schedule of the dinner, we only managed to tell 1 story abt each of them.

i think soon to come, i'll be the single dude who's always hanging out w the couples. lol.
actually u know wad, i'm ALREADY the single dude who's always hanging out w the couples. lol.
i think i'm at dat age where weddings are getting lesser but definitely hearing more news of frens being pregnant, giving birth, being pregnant again w their 2nd kid, baby showers and e whole lot.

and while on the topic of the babies, i recently went for michelle's son, isaac's full mth party.
and i met a fren from v v v long ago. the mid-90s is when i'll say.
we caught up a fair bit, staying at e party waaaaay longer than we had planned.
it's always nice to catch up w frens who u have lost touch w from long ago.

hopefully the throat will stay quiet over the next 2 days while i'm working.
been nursing a cough since last week. was much better, prolly to the point of being completely well. but suddenly a massive coughing bout last nite, made everything worse.
to e doctor i went this morning and got more meds. thankfully there was no phelgm so no antibiotics this time round. juz lozenges, cough mixture and some med to reduce the swelling from all dat coughing.

Poor Sick Lulu

Lulu is sick.
she's been having some steering problem over e last couple of weeks i guess.
gona b on leave tmr to bring her to e doc.

hopefully it isnt anything major dat will burn a hole in my pocket.
she needs a set of new tyres too. the current ones are balding and need changing already.

gona b up early to send her to e workshop and if they're gona take a while,
den i'm gona b cabbing down to wavehouse n clock some flo-riding hrs. den pick her up again.

really hope i dun get caught in peak hr traffic when travelling both ways.

fingers crossed and hope she comes out fine.

The Birthday Weekend

This yr's bday is DEFINITELY one of the quietest i've had in e last 2 yrs.
big bash 2yrs ago on my 30th,
awesome nite out at wala's last yr w approx $300 worth of drinks on e house
a zoo outing, a simple dinner at esmiralda and a nice sunday brunch.

it's free entry to e zoo if it's ur bday and u get a free icecream as well. u also get 10% discount off F&B and mechandise.

so to e zoo we went - ben, jacq n i. the rest couldn't make it :(
peter is in US.
mark had to work.
john had a rally and ewen n fel were helping him.

lovely weather on dat day tho - not much sun, no rain. nice weather to walk ard in e zoo.
fotos will b coming up in FB. so pls b patient :P

after zoo, it was dinner at esmiralda at orchard hotel.
for the longest time, everyone in church has gone to esmiralda one time or another.
but somehow everytime there's a dinner there, i'm travelling for work.
so sat was my first time dining there and it was most definitely yummilicious.
the meats are so fantastic, so juicy.

sunday's brunch was at Graze at rochester park.
it was e first time everyone else was eating there - ben, jacq, fel n ewen.
poor markie had to work again and john was busy in church.
had their signature cast iron pan which had bacon, sausage, potatoes, baked beans.
so awesome. yum.

it was juz a simple relaxed brunch, starting at 11am and we only left ard 2 or 2.30pm.
went home for a while to rest up and ard 5.15pm, i was headed to michy's place for house blessing.

she had just moved into her new home at bt panjang and friggy was there to do e hse blessing.
it's always nice to see friggy.

after blessing, it was dinner time and after dinner, we played more raving rabbids.
yes, we played e game too b4 e blessing.

went home w tired, achy arms but it was kinda well worth the fun.

Note to Self

Please blog soon.

i will try to blog abt my trip to norway, legoland, basel and london.
and how crazy work is.
but i dun have e mood to blog leh.

The Norsk Adventure - Week 1 & 2

It's been abt 2 weeks since i arrived in norway.

the weather is a little cold but enjoyable.
food is not too bad. been surviving on kebabs, pizza and salads.
i get to walk ALOT but dat's juz to counter the fat foods i'm eating.

was quite an adventure juz trying to get to norway.
my flight on tues nite (18may) on KLM got cancelled so was supposed to be back again the next day.
but a call to my boss, another to the company's travel agent and a 2 1/2hr wait, i was booked to fly at 9am to london on SQ den on BA to oslo
so i dun end up arriving in kongsberg too late for my training.

kongsberg is abt a 1.5hr drive from the oslo airport. the sun sets ard 1030pm and i heard dat the sun rises ard 430.
if i'm not wrong, there is not complete darkness at night. so there's always a tinge of blue in the sky at nite.

the place is a small quiet town where e shops close ard 5pm and on thurs the shops open longer til 7pm.
sunday is damn killer coz NOTHING is open. not even the supermarkets.
the place is SO small, u can pretty much walk all over town in an hour tops.
the weather here when i first arrive was great. 18-22deg with the sun. loved it.
but last sunday marked the beginning of a cold week. it was kinda raining almost everyday, esp the weekends.
left the hotel at prolly 19degs at 1pm only to return ard 11pm at 4.5deg.
and it kinda snowed in kongsberg too.

everything here is expensive from food to taxis to the movies.
cheapest food u can find here in kongsberg is kebabs. a meal w a drink will set u back abt 125NOK (nowegian kronors) which is abt $30.
the exchange rate is s$1 approx = 4.2NOK. a movie ticket is 85NOK = $21.
but the seat in front of u has a table thingy which u can open up so u can put ur popcorn n drinks.
i din know until the movie was abt to start and i saw these 2 guys open their tables.
din wana look like a suaku trying to figure out how it opens while the movie was going on.
caught the movie 'daybreakers' - a movie abt vampires being the dominate race in the world n humans are being harvested for their blood.
stary built up v nicely. but the ending was juz sooooo bad. it was like in 30mins and the world was saved.

back to the adventures.
on the first sunday here, i went to the silvermines kongsberg is famous for.
kongsberg only became famous coz of the large quantities of silver discovered here in the early 1600s.
only 1 mine is open to the public and u gota take a mine train into the mountain to get into the mines.
this mine, the biggest of the all the mines in the area and the first to be opened, is called the king's mine.
it alone accounted for half of kongsberg's silver output.
from the surface, the mine was abt 1km deep and was abt 3 times taller or deeper than the eiffel tower.

went to oslo yesterday w 2 fellow trainees from brazil.
walked ard for quite a bit. we visited the vigeland park, otherwise known as the statue park, which showcased abt 200 statues by gustav vigeland.
also walked to the new opera house built in 2007. din walk in tho coz it was closed but walked to the roof n checked out the view.
also dropped by the royal palace ard 1.30pm to watch the changing of the guard. toko a foto w one of the guards.
but they can talk to ppl who ask questions and tell ppl to move away from the barrier and if they're tired from standing stil, they can march abt their post. quite unlike the british guards we see on the telly.

most unfortunately, my camera batt died after the changing of the guards.
stupid me forgot to make sure the batt was fully charged the nite b4. dang.

took a ferry to cross the fjord to visit the viking museum where they had 2 whole viking ships on display.
a third was also on display but it was not intact any longer. it also displayed the artifacts which were discovered w the ships.
after dat, it was another quick walk to the FRAM museum which shows the history of norway's polar explorers.
the main exhibit is the ship, FRAM, which sailed further north and south than any other surface vessel.
it is preserved in it's original condition and it's open for visitors to enter and explore its walkways n rooms.

after dat, we took the ferry back to the main city centre and went to the nowegian musuem of science n technology.
it was kinda like the science center. but they have a full sized plane in there.
think it was one of the first jet engine planes operated by SAS.
u could walk underneath the landing gear and check out the hydraulic pistons and hydraulic lines and mechanical linkages
and figure out how exactly the landing is retracted into the body and how the door will close after dat.
okie... engineering geek stuff. mayb only aerospace geek stuff. lol.

after dat stop, it was almost the end of the day. most museums close at 5pm, 6pm latest.
one of the guys from the start of the trip wanted to visit the icebar by the ice hotel.
if some of us might remember, the ice hotel was featured on discoery channel showing how they built the hotel from scratch.
so the icebar is basically a replica of the actual bar in the hotel which has now melted.
so temperture inside is fixed at -5degs so we had to wear a thermal cape to keep warm. cover charges included a drink.
so it wasn't all dat bad. i had a drink which was a mix of aquavit and apple juice.
aquavit is a local spirit which i think is local to scandinavia.
so gona bring a bottle home from this trip.

and after dat, my 2 colleagues were gona visit one of their nowegian colleague.
so i left them to get my own dinner. walked past a chinese restaurant and tot i'll have chinese for dinner.
a mixed meat stirfry of beef, pork, chicken and 2 prawns, chicken soup (which is more western than chinese) and rice n tea came up to 240NOK which is abt $60. $60 dollars leh! can go owen seafood n eat seafood at half price lor.

i think i've gota stop converting prices here to sing dollars. i will go crazy thinking abt how expensive things are here. REALLY.

today is juz a relaxing day at home. juz gona watch some tv series, get on fb (wad's new?) and cook dinner later.
still havent decided wad's gona b on the menu.

i'm gona try to get my lappie to detect my sd card so i can copy my fotos and upload them to fb.
next week, i'm thinking of taking a train to bergen, a city on the west coast of norway. this route is in the wor;d's top 25 trains.
so till next week! take care y'all! miss u!

5 Years On...

It juz dawned on me while in the shower dat i've been single for almost 5yrs now.
time sure has passed real quickly.

i'm not complaining. in fact i'm happy w my life.
and i'm thankful for frens who have been w me thru these amazing 5yrs.

so thank u again dear frens. u are most definitely loved coz u shared ur love w me.

Almost Missed

Was off to philippines for work on sunday morning.
so left the chalet early at 7.30am to go to changi airport.
everything went well until i got to the domestic airport.

my flight was scheduled for 1605 takeoff. but my boarding pass said boarding time was 1625.
but there was no display or notification to say dat the flight was delayed until prolly like 1600.
so i heard dat the flight is delayed due to a late departure from singapore.
so i continued listening to my music... while waiting for the gate to open.

it was almost 5pm when i heard the announcement calling for me to proceed to the gate.
i had only heard my name and not the gate number so i quickly looked for one of the gate staff to enquire.
got the gate number and run like the wind. wasn't sure if i was the last one or among the last ones at dat time.
upon reaching the gate, den i realized i was the last pax.
so i had the whole plane waiting for me. oops :P sorry folks. and thanx for waiting.

when i sat down and was preparing to turn off my iphone, i couldn't find my iphone pouch.
i figured i must have dropped it when i jumped up to run to the gate.
and in the pouch was my airplane earphone adapter. looks like i'll b using SIA's not-dat-fantastic earphones for the flight back.

so here i am now at the hotel lobby, blogging and FB-ing and msn-ing coz there's no internet service in the rm. only free wifi in the lobby or poolside.
think i shd adjorn to the poolside later after lunch.

but waiting for something to happen, not knowing when it'll happen sux.
sux to the max.
coz i'm now waiting for the agent to tell me wad time he'll pick me up to send me to the heliport.

but meantime lunch is here.
so this entry ends now coz feeding a hungry stomach is impt.

The Weekend That Was Not Meant To Be

This past weekend is really an interesting one.
Barring sunday, friday n saturday were filled with plans dat did not go as planned.

wanted to go wala's on fri to catch EIC but silly us met at the hawker centre at 7.30pm,
completely forgetting dat we shd be IN wala's at 730 to get ourselves a table.
upon reaching wala at 8pm, there was a queue downstairs and it was full upstairs. (wad's new?)

so we went off to dempsey to check out the new little extension. there was this restaurant/bar place called Contemporary Melting-Pot & Bar or CM-PB in short. most awesome mussles in marma ham sauce. nice little quiet place in a corner of dempsey, away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the place.

saturday started out nice and easy. woke up late, bummed ard at home until 6ish.
den it was time to go to marina to try to catch the opening ceremony of the helix bridge.
on the way there while on the AYE, some dumbass decided to pull some stunt, causing a cab 2 vehicles in front of me to jam brake which resulted in the cab directly in front of me to jam brake as well. and of coz i jam braked too. i stopped in time, stopping narrowly behind the cab.
but before i can say 'HENG AH!' the car behind hit me. pushing me infront, thereby hitting the cab.

#$@#%$%^@^@... and the thought on my mind while getting particulars of the 2 cabs n the car behind was: damn... there goes the plans for tonite. cant catch the fireworks.

and within 30secs after the accident, a couple of guys from some workshop appeared and helped the drivers with getting all the necessary information while asking everyone if anyone was injured.
they offered to take my van to the workshop to get it repaired and of coz settle all the paperwork. and i was in no mood to like think abt which workshop to send my van, i juz drove my van to their workshop for them to handle all the affairs related to the accident.
got a rental vehicle to use in the meantime while the van is being repaired.
lulu is gona b in the hospital for abt 4-5 days. hope she can discharge b4 i fly off to the philippines.

since the workshop was in kaki bukit, dinner was at bedok 85. and of coz we ordered lots of food. (wad's new?)
and after dinner, we went back to the marina bay area to check out the helix bridge as planned.
it wasn't as awesome as it was made out to be. but we still walked across the whole bridge to the end which was abt 2/3 across. the remaining 1/3 was cordoned off as construction works on the other are still not complete.
and so ends saturday.

and this is the weekend when nothing went according to plan.
now aint dat sweet?

Counting Down, Counting Down

In another few more days, i'll b home, back on land.
in another few more days, i'll b sleeping in my beloved bed, which i'm 1000% sure, my bro is sleeping in right now.
in another few more days, i'll b playing bioshock 2 on my pc.
in another few more days, i'll b powering.
in another few more days, i'll b back in the office.
in another few more days, i'll b pokering on weekend nites.
in another few more days, i'll b checking my toto tickets. (yes... i havent checked them yet.)
in another few more days, i'll b mj-ing on fri nites.
in another few more days, well... u get the idea.

i've been away for quite a while now. 1 wk b4 CNY and 2 more after makes 3 weeks living onboard.
miss the food the most. luckily i've had my power pitstop couple days ago.
if i'm lucky, i might get my maggi goreng w teh tarik pitstop tmr morning. *fingers crossed*

well, it's nice to have made some new frens on this trip.
so a big harlow to u all but i doubt they'll b reading this.
it's been great working w them and getting to know them as well.

my sleeping pattern was all out of whack sleeping at 10am-ish or 3pm-ish and waking up in the afternn or ard 9pm-ish.
over the last couple of days, i've been sleeping like 3ish and waking up ard 9ish, trying to get back into a regular proper sleeping pattern.
guess i shd b gng off to sleep now.

see u guys pretty soon! hope u havent missed me much.
let me know if u did :D

Splish, Splash

The last couple of weeks have been busy madness.
staying onboard the rig for a week b4 CNY to finish up commissioning my system and all.

now dat it's all done up (more or less) and on sea trial, i can now take things a little easy.
coz it's now the software engineer's work now.
cant wait for the day we get back from the trials and having all my time sheets signed.

den it's the mad rush to replace faulty parts and complete my paperwork.

den it's off to a dive someplace in m'sia. hehehe...
cant wait to get into the water again. and if a dive is not possible den a trip to wavehouse is deemed necessary.

cant wait for this project to end. and get a little break.

on a happier note, ben proposed to jacq and she said yes. lol.
ben, mark, fel n i went thru like all kinds of schemes to try to come up w a proposal plan.
but in the end, it was done at dinner at sage.
congrats to u both.

CNY gambling has been good. won a fair bit of money. abt 300 i think.
i'm getting sian of all the visiting but still feel obligated to drive my parents ard.

kinda spacing out already so i guess i'll stop here.
cant wait to get back to poker and power. lol.

Work and Phelgm Dun Mix

Juz when the cough is pretty much no more, working like crazy has caused the return of the phelgm. the cough better stay away.

it's been a mad week. rushing from home to office, office to the yard and finally only leaving the yard between 6-7pm to get home.
it's thurs today and the unwell feeling is slowly creeping in. i can sooooo feel it in my bones. RAWR!

work has been crazy on the yard. everyday, i seem to have done lots but when i think back of wad i've done at the end of the day, it doesn't seem dat much. somehow time juz flies and i'm not having fun!! WTF!

i juz need to last till fri, den things shd hopefully slowdown.

okie. gota go liao.
will blog more another time.