The Craftsman’s Forge

The Crocs craze is in town. I first noticed these “ugly” shoes about 3 months back in a shop in Funan Centre, of all places! It was unique to say the least, and more importantly, although the first impression was “Urrghhh…. what ugly shoes!”, the almost immediate change in opinion comes about when you realise they cost SGD$52.40 per pair!

“Hey!” A momentory stupid thought came to my mind….. “I’ll get these for the kids!” What a fabulous idea! That was , until I remembered out how much they were going to cost me. two pairs for SGD$104.80. Quite a rip off if I may say so. No price difference regardless of size hor!

I mean…stupid rubber shoes, molded in China, costing probably SGD$2 per pair to produce, and import to Singapore to sell for SGD$52.40. Wah Piang….. This is wanton exploitation you know.

I didn’t think much about it until the other night when Chris raised the topic again.

Chris: Hey… I saw these nice resin shoes at Causeway Point, and I’m thinking of getting them for the girls. What do you think?”

Me: Oh.. the Crocs is it? Looks pretty nice hor? OK lah! Lets go get them for the whole family! It’ll be cool.

Before I knew it… I got caught in the very consumerism I told myself not to get into! The Cros had become a giffen good to me, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one.

So, this morning, we went for our usual Saturday morning family outing to Suntec City, and after we had breakfast, we slipped over to Royal Sporting House to see if they carried it. No luck there, but we got directed to a small shop setup in the atrium which were selling the shoes. The girls chose one each, a pink and red pair, and I went for a safer blue. Chris decided to pass, as she felt the shoes were simply “Not Her”, and that they were too expensive.

The best part was, I paid only SGD$130 for all three pairs, which adds up to approximately SGD$44.30 per pair, an approximate $8 ($24) savings or a 15% discount! Woo Hoo!

We’re now officially part of the cool “IN STYLE” generation!

By the way, while walking in Carrefour, I saw imitation Crocs for sale at only SGD$19.90!!! Wah.. Chris, since the Crocs too expensive, can use the S$24 savings to buy the $19.90 imitation Crocs for you!

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Family, Crocs, Shoes, Slippers, Fashion, Craftsman

Yup! Thats right. The gremlin has broken out in rashes. Poor little thing! He was down with a fever over the last couple of days, and then after the fever subsided, he started breaking out in rashes.

Didn’t quite remember any of the girls breaking out in rashes before, so we took him to the doctor again to have him checked out. Turns out its pretty common, and it should be around for a couple of days.

Good thing he isn’t too cranky.

By the way, his two teeth quite cute rite? Ha ha.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Family, Elkan, Son, Rashes, Craftsman

It was 6:30am this morning when Kyla woke me up to ask for a bottle of milk. yeah… she still wants milk in the wee hours of the morning. In fact, both Kyla and Ariel do. So, I got my ass up and made some milk for them. After drinking her milk, she would normally doze off again for another 30 minutes before waking up at 7am.

But, she didn’t continue sleeping this morning. I opened my eyes to peep at her, and her eyes were wide opened, looking at me, and flashing me her widest smile.

Wahhhh……. I live for moments like these.

She climbed onto my bed, we snuggled, and I told her how much Daddy loves her. sigh… this is the life. My lovely little baby.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Family, Daughter, Father, Love, Craftsman

I washed the car last night, and by this morning, I noticed irritating dust circles (the kind left behind by dried dirty water) all over the front windscreen. I sighed and mentioned to Chris on the drive to work this morning that Singapore is an extremely dusty country. Doesn’t matter what people say about the city being clean and green, the fact was that Singapore is alot dustier than alot of other countries. Perth for instance.

I could get away with not washing my car for a good two to three months when I was in Perth. There simply isn’t as much dust in the air.

Somehow, the conversation turned to a discussion on why Ang Mos wear shoes into their houses.

If it’s something I haven’t caught on, even after three years of living in Perth, was why our Ang Mo friends wear their shoes into the house. I guess this wasn’t quite an issue until the house the Ang Mos want to wear their shoes into, belongs to you! I mean, what do you care what they wear into their house right?!!?

Chris and I figured that the practice probably developed because Perth is alot more dust free than Singapore, and even if you wear shoes into the house, you’re unlikely to dirty the house more than if you walked in barefooted.

But, this really baffles me….this culture or behaviour pervades even in Singapore among my Ang Mo friends/colleagues.

I’ve had the opportunity to step into a number of houses belonging to my Ang Mos friends, and when I attempt to take off my shoes, they STOP me!!!! Wahh…….. This may come off as a bit obsessive-compulsive, or maybe it just makes good sense. I have a “no shoes in the house” rule. It’s a childhood and cultural rule that I very much agree with. It only makes sense to me: you wear shoes on the dirty streets outside, you take off the dirty shoes when you come inside and keep your house clean! (I won’t even go into the visions of germs I have).

If you don’t take off your shoes, what’s the difference between outside and inside? (Don’t get me started on people who wear their shoes ON their bed.

I don’t have a problem with Asians, but others are surprised and/or uncomfortable with this rule. For a multitude of reasons, I guess: that it’s not a norm and they have holes in their socks, or they’re long overdue for a pedicure, or they’ve got some sort of foot condition, or their feet get cold.

So…. if you happen to be an Ang Mo, pray tell me, why do you folks….. eh… wear your shoes into the house?

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Shoes, Hygene, Shoes+House, Family, Craftsman

We decided to renew our Friends of the Zoo membership last Saturday. For a fee of SGD$120, we got unlimited access to the zoo for a whole year, complimentary carpark whenever we visit, 5 free tram ride tickets and free quarterly subscription to the Wildlife Wonders magazine.

We’ve been FOZ members for one year now, and we’ve visited the Singapore Zoo countless of times over the last twelve months. Goodness, we can even recognise the zoo keepers, show timings and the kids can tell whats gonna happen during the animal shows.

But, we still renewed our membership anyway, cos the zoo is one place the kids love to go to. Plus the fact that Elkan is only 11 months old, he’s gonna enjoy this immensely over the next year. Looking at this from an economic standpoint, it is more economical that we sign up for FOZ as it will cost us more if we just paid whenever we visit. Besides, its a great way to spend quality family time together, and excellent exercise for the entire family.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Zoo, Animals, FOZ, Family, Craftsman

It’s been some nine months since we decided to live without a domestic helper. I won’t go into the specifics of why we decided to send our maid back to Indonesia, suffice to say that we had to deal with numerous issues that comes along with domestic helpers such as the invasion of privacy, the relationship between the older generation and the helper, etc, and that it was generally a time bomb waiting to explode.

So, in May 18th 2005, we called it quits and decided to begin a new life without the maid and exploring the dangers and pitfalls of managing 2 monkeys and 1 two month old baby between the two of us. It would be an understatement to say that we stepped into this new adventure with A LOT of fear and trembling.

Chris and I divvied up the chores between the two of us. Chris was to do the laundry and the folding of the laundry when done, and I took care of the cleaning of the toilets and the vacuuming and mopping of the entire house. Somehow…. I think I got severely ripped off in the negotiations. BUT….. I love my wife lah…. So it was a good chance for me to show her how much I loved her, and I didn’t make too much of an issue.

Immediately, I realized that I needed some help. There was absolutely no way I will be spending 3 hours a week cleaning the house. Hmm…. I needed something to take some of the chores off me.

As a technology person, I immediately started my investigation through Google. I typed “Automatic Vacuuming” in my search, and a link to Amazon came up.

I was now introduced to a world of robotic vacuum cleaners!!!!

Further research and many hours later, I decided that I needed this

No, not the girl stoopid.. the vacuum cleaner

I promptly bought my new Roomba from Hammacher Schlemmer, got them to Fed-ex it to my VPost address in the US, and for VPost to courier it back to Singapore for me.

I waited for about 2 weeks, and when it finally turned up, I was raring to go. Finally! My back was already breaking under the weeks of manual vacuuming.

The kids were really excited, and were crowding around when I set it up, charging it and stuff. I still remember that it was a Saturday morning when we let “Roomba” loose in the house. There was a lot of screaming and squealing all around.

Yee Hah!

The first time it went off, we sat on the sofa, and watched it for something like 10 minutes before the children got bored and started to go near it and prodding it, running back to the safety of the sofa when it bleeped its delightful musical tones.

Roomba came with a remote scheduler, so that I can schedule it to start at anytime on any day, which is an immense advantage, cos it could be vacuuming when we are not in the house, and when we get home, the floors would be vacuumed.

Did it clean very well? Well…. Firstly, it has an algorithm that allows it to discover the floor area every time it cleans. I’m not sure how that algorithm works, cos its patented, and of course iRobot would be extremely protective of that intellectual property.

It sucks up the dirt as it moves along the floor, and keeps the dirt, dust and hair in compartment in the back.

Take a look at the amount of dirt it sucked up, just on one sortie.

That’s quite a lot, I must say! Also, the good thing about Roomba, is that after going through the house, it automatically returns to dock in its charging bay for charging and is ready for another round if you feel its necessary.

Without Roomba, my life would have been a lot more menial and tiring. As we say it in the technology industry, I “outsourced” the back-breaking grunt work to a willing party. What’s SGD $600 compared with a cleaner floor? Some more no need to do the work myself. Ha ha…. That’s smart cleaning in my opinion.

The only thing now is to get the floor automatically mopped, and my eyes have been on Scooba since last September. It was just released last Christmas, and I’m giving it some time to mature before I get it to accompany Roomba.

Besides, I think Roomba’s getting a little lonely.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Roomba, Technology, Vacuum, Robot, Craftsman

Sigh… It didn’t quite go as well as I had liked it… Valentine’s Day that is.

First…. I had such a busy day at work, that I actually FORGOT to pick her up from her office, and mistakenly thought that since she was on leave, I’d be meeting her back at my mum’s place. So, I went back home directly with thoughts of picking up the flowers on the way home. (ok ok… my fault completely ok?)

Middle of my journey home, I got a call from a frantic wife….”WHERE ARE YOU????”….Didn’t even register at all at first, but in about a delayed 5 seconds, I realised it would be my worst Valentine’s day ever.

She came back fuming, and one thing led to another…. a card and flowers went down the rubbish chute…… (Serious)

I was so tired and grumpy throughout the night, I didn’t even want to quarrel anymore. But we at least made peace before the night was out. It’ll get better tomorrow when we’re less tired.

So…. its about 4:30am in the morning. I’ve been working on this picture of Roses for the last 30 minutes, and the best I can salvage of the situation…..

I LOVE you Honey… with all of my heart, and I’m sorry I threw the flowers down the rubbish chute earlier today……Happy Valentines Day, and roses or not, quarrels or laughter, I want to spend the rest of my life and all the future Valentines with you……

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Valentines, Flowers, craftsman

I’ve finally found out where they send your iMac once they die……

I K E A

Technorati Tags: Singapore, iMac, Retire, Apple, Ikea, craftsman

A bunch of us headed out for lunch today, and we had a most welcomed guest of sorts, the intrepid Vijay Srinivasan himself, or better known as “The MAN”.

Some of you might know that he maintains an extremely engaging blog where he laxes lyrical about the dire condition of mans’ hearts and the daunting journey one takes in discovering his/her purpose in this world. Go read it if you haven’t. Its very interesting, and it might just prompt you to think a little deeper about your own condition too.

Anyway, I digress… We had a most welcomed guest of sorts, the intrepid Vijay Srinivasan himself, or better known as “The MAN”, and being the gracious person that he is, treated us to a complete verbal dissertation of his current number 1 pet hobby….. Being a successful Apple engineer. Imagine the indignation on the faces of the REAL IT engineers who were at the same table. Notice thats how the group of testosterone alpha males sitting in the background, completely ignoring Vijay and the rest of the gang.

We did make it out of Pasta Mania alive, and THE MAN treated us to coffee at Coffee Bean. Hey Thanks Vijay!!!!!!

After what must have been a couple of drinks, Vijay launched into a self induced male frenzy as he is known to do after a couple mugs of beer. You see… Vijay is now on a strict calcium diet, and somehow, he has in the course of his meditations, managed to turn coffee into whisky, because he started talking excitedly about the cute guys in the office. Sitting just next to him, I felt myself instinctively move a couple of feet away.

Intrigued and curious, I asked him the inevitable question….”So… Whos your favourite guy in the office?” Take a look at his response.

urrggghhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost puked.

But still, I feel extremely blessed it wasn’t me on his mind. ha ha

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Love, Sicko, Male Bonding, Vijay, Wing, craftsman

Some of you might know I have a hobby of watching birds. No, its not what you dirty minds out there think it is. It’s really watching birds, as in casual ornithology. Its a hobby I took up in 2004 to help me destress. I found this field report in my disk while doing a little spring cleaning, and thought I’d share it.

Its a hobby I relish, but find very little time nowadays to enjoy. I have a hectic work life, and three monkeys at home. Whatever time I have left, I would like to spend with Chris, and so this hobby has taken a little of a back seat recently. I have scores of pictures I would like to share, but the ones below are one of the firsts I have taken. Quality of which are not pretty good, as I haven’t gotten use to the equipment yet.

A little summary info before you plunge in. Singapore has the highest diversity of birds per square kilometres of land space in the world. It has over 250 species of birds!!! With such scarcity of land, and the ever encroaching human development, the diversity of birds in Singapore will continue to suffer. I’m just glad during my lifetime, that I have the privilege to encounter them.

Call it whatever you will, I had the worst of luck today when I went out bird hunting. If it wasn’t for the second part of my trip, the entire day would have been a complete washout. I thought I’d give the MacRitchie trails a try out, since I had never been there digiscoping before. I took the Prunus and the Pentai trails, which would take me along the fringe of the primary forest, and hopefully provide me with a better chance of sighting and photographing some birds.

Well, I did sight some birds and heard a lot more, but since I very new to the hobby, I couldn’t tell a monkey’s call from a bird. (I’m exaggerating, but its quite a close description. :)) Along the way to the trail, I sighted a Yellow-Vented Bulbul, but decided not to scope it as I wasn’t even on the trail yet. The rest of the boardwalk was extremely quiet in terms of birds, and I think largely because the reservoir was suddenly invaded by packs of families and children running, screaming and thumping along the boardwalk. I guess then that whatever birds around would have decided to disappear.

To be fair, I did sight a Black-Naped Oriole, but it was too high up the canopy for me to take any pictures. :(. I was then fairly along the Pentai trail when I caught sight of a crimson Sunbird, and excitedly got out my equipment. But the time I setup the scope, camera and tripod, it was nowhere to be seen. Just my luck.

I had initially intended to walk the entire route 4 which would have taken me to the SICC, Sime trail, Golf link, Lornie trail and back to the Little Sisters of the Poor, but decided to cut it short by returning back to main exit which was just 1.8km, compared to the 9.8km which I would have to endure had I gone with my original plan. I guess the crowd made up my mind for me. I had just one shot, of a monkey’s cup plant, a souvenir of my trip to MacRitchie, in case my wife didn’t believe me.

I had by then walked about 3 km, and taken about an hour. It was only 11:30am, and I decided to head to the Tanah Merah area, as I had heard lots about it. Since I’ve never been there before, I thought I’d give it a go

I was past the Ferry terminal, and still not quite sure where to stop. I headed all the way to the end which was where the Changi Navy base was. I did a U-turn, and headed back in the direction of the ferry terminal. Further up, seeing a slight turn in, I stopped my car by the slight turn in and proceeded with my stuff into the grass area. Initial sights were encouraging, as I saw quite a lively bird community among the wasted trucks, containers and rusted equipment. By then it was noon, and the sun was out in force, scorching me. I quickly setup my scope and camera, and tried to get some pics. But, try as hard as I did, the birds (Don’t know what they are yet) kept flying away as soon as I got within sight of them. The bright sun didn’t help either.

Then, the weirdest thing happened. I saw a man riding up to me on his bicycle. He was Indian, and probably a construction worker. He asked me where I was heading to, and I told him I was just walking around looking at birds. He told me not to head further in, as there were workers inside who would be frightened to see me. I was surprised to say the least. I asked him what nationalities they were, and he replied Thais and Indians. The funny thing was when he said the workers may be frightened to see me, I figured they could be really shy people who were not used to seeing Singaporeans. At the same time while he said that, I saw a lady dressed in a Hard Rock t-shirt and jeans, and talking on a hand-phone walking right behind him (about 25 meters away) in the bushes towards the inner areas. I remembered thinking then that some of the birding community might have beaten me to the area.

I decided not to venture further in, incase I really frightened them. I headed out, but along the way out, I saw a lady about 5 meters away from me, and she happened to see me too. She sort of panicked, and turned away from me, returning from the direction she came from. I was at this time still looking for birds, but all the while wondering to myself what strange things were people doing here. I later heard distanced chattering (lady’s voice) in thai. THEN it dawned on me!!!!!!!!!!!! MAN!!!!!! If I was part of the anti-vice team on the Singapore Police Force, I think I would have met my quota today! :). I decided to quickly leave.

Again, I left without any pics, and my scope was scorching hot. What a day. I then drove along Changi Coast road headed towards Changi Village to get a bottle of water. My water had run out by then, and I was parched dry. It was here that I remembered someone posting a mail about raptors along this stretch of road. I began to keep a look out.

I thought my luck began to tune, when I sighted a large raptor like silhouette perched on a tall pine-like tree on the right side of the road. I quickly stopped by the side of the road, and setup my tripod, scope and camera. Just as I was setup, a cyclist noticed me, and also stopped by to check me out. (no, the cyclist was not a girl) I managed to get a shot in at about 60x zoom, but the shot was a little blur, with the wind and me trying to cope with red ants which had started to scurry up my legs.

I tried to zoom in further, and had also by this time had to entertain the questions posed to me by my new cyclist friend. “What are you photographing?” “There seems to be an eagle up that tree” I replied. “Oh! I thought you were photographing planes. There is a better place to take planes you know?” On and on he went, and I was thinking to myself what dumb luck I was having the entire day. what else could go wrong? Then I heard something like “Oh oh.”. I looked up, while still trying to zoom, in, get the bird within my scope sight, fight off red ants, and realised that a police car had just stopped in front of my car!

The policeman stepped out and asked “Uh… what are you photographing?” “There seems to be an eagle up that tree” I replied. “I’m trying to get a shot in” He looked up at the tree and said “Oh!” He probably thought I was part of Osama’s team in Singapore, trying to take videos of the runway and stuff. “Could I continue, sir?” “Oh…Yeah, yeah. Just don’t tell anyone that I stopped by and didn’t stop you” “Oh sure” I promised. I got back to trying to get the bird in my scope for a better pic. “Damn it” I gasped, “Sun’s too bright” I guess I must have said it a little too loudly, cos my cyclist friend offered “Do you have an umbrella in your car? I could hold it up for you?” ARGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really felt like telling him “Look pal, I just need you to get on your way and leave me alone, ok?” He did finally leave me, wishing me good luck with the photography. I murmured a thanks, and was wondering why I couldn’t get the bird locked in my scope. I looked up at the tree again, and realised the raptor had already flew away.

My first picture of the day. Ha ha!

ID anyone?

I then headed home, feeling really frustrated. Took a shower and rested with my two beautiful little girls, but the feeling of frustration of a wasted day kept bugging me. My wife gave me permission to head out again at about 3:30pm. ☺ Thank God for understanding wives!

I drove to Lorong Halus. Boy, was I glad I decided to do a second trip. It was here where I really got some good shots. I made a turn off Lorong Halus, and stopped right there. I had set up my equipment in the passenger seat beside me and had the scope pointing outside through the left hand window. I quickly noticed crows, mynahs, spotted doves, peaceful doves, white breasted waterhens, common moorhens, white-throated kingfisher, European sparrows, munias etc.

I took many of these from within the car, so the birds couldn’t see me. The problem was with vibrations, which I later found out. Some of the shots were too shaky to see anything. Some of the ones below are also quite bad.

White Breasted Waterhen

White Throated King Fisher

Scaly Breasted Munia

Baya Weaver

Asian Starling

Common Moorhen

After stopping numerous times along the same road, I finally headed towards Pasir Ris, and there was this small stream with so much activity. I sighted a White-Throated Kingfisher,

White Throated King Fisher

a Little Egret,

Little Egret

and a Great Egret

Great Egret

I figure about 80% of my shots were bad, but everything considered, I had a hell of a day.

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Bird Watching, Birds, Ornithology, Nature, Preservation