The Craftsman’s Forge

Its not normal protocol to send country IT heads to HQ on their first day at work. Let alone an entire week in Hong Kong. Anyways, without going into the reasons why the company is doing this for me, I’ve got a pretty general schedule from my boss on whats gonna happen in Hong Kong.

It looks pretty much like this:
- Overview of global infrastructure from the infrastructure team
- Overview of Hong Kong IT management from the local Hong Kong IT team
- Overview of the business from the business heads
- Warehouse & Logistics overview
- Meet with my boss (CIO & Regional MD)

Add to this, I’ll likely not yet get my email, my laptop, etc because of Singaporean logistics….
So, I’ll be bringing my Macbook Pro along with me to Hong Kong.

Not sure if I’ll be slogging away in Hong Kong over the next couple of days, but my take is I’ll be terribly bored after the orientation, and that I’ll have lots of time to kill, especially in the evenings. Good time to meet up with some friends in Hong Kong.

Ohh….. I almost forgot about the fish!!!! Good thing Christine will be helping me feed them.. What a darling she is…

Looks like I’m heading to Hong Kong for a whole week of orientation next week.

I’m completing my last few days in my current company. I’m transferring out to another legal entity within the group of companies I work in. This move puts me back in the pharmaceutical industry, and the manufacturing and logistical industry.

I had been in discussions with my new company since last July, and while discussions were still progressing, numerous positions were laid on the table for me. This was when the options of being based in Hong Kong came up. I did some calculations, and decided that the company was not going to bring me to Hong Kong. True enough. It fell through. But they wanted me enough to explore other positions for me, until a hiring freeze stopped the entire process in September.

But talks again revived in December, and I finally signed a contract in January.

Work starts next Monday, and I’m thankful that the company will bring over my years of service in my present company. This will be another new change for the family, and I won’t be able to pick Kyla up from the bus stop every evening now, seeing that my new office is on one extreme end of the island.

It makes me really glad that Christine is exploring a more stable opportunity in the coming weeks. If all goes well, she will be able to get a more stable job with regular hours and help pick up my slack. I’ll get her a new car too!

My Apistos spawned!!!!! Saw the fries swimming free with mummy this morning before we left the house. Will have to keep monitoring them for 3 days, and remove the adults in a couple of days. Wheeee!!!! I’m so happy….. Can’t get any pics now. The fires are too tiny.

Was on my way to Singapore Expo with Jordan to meet Alvin for lunch, when we chance on this accident on the ECP. Apparently, a taxi crashed onto the back of a van. I think the van driver is ok, but the taxi driver was hurt. He had to be extracted from the vehicle.

The accident blocked up 3 lanes, and traffic stacked up for a little over 2 hours.

Damaged taxi

The back of the damaged truck

As some of you might know, Chris is working with a rather large retail chain in Singapore. One of her colleagues required children models for some of their clothing range, and approached Christine to see if our kids could do it. Chris said yes, and we found ourselves at the studio shoot last night at 8:30pm.

This time round, it would only be Ariel and Elkan because of the range of clothing for younger children.

Ariel and Elkan going through the make-up session.

Then, it was Elkan’s turn to start first. He had shaky start, but after he warmed up to it, he enjoyed it like no body’s business….

Here’s Elkan in the photo editing suite…

Then came Ariel’s turn. She was more nervous than Elkan, but still managed to get some pretty decent shots through….

For their trouble, they both earned their first keep…. $50 vouchers each at the said retail chain. We brought them out to get some toys today for their efforts…. Kyla too, of course.

On the morning of the day we were going to fly to Hong Kong, we decided to make a trip to the Southern Ridges, just to take a look at the Henderson Wave bridge.

Beautiful wave bridge…. the highest bridge in Singapore, I think. When you look down to the road below, your feet get a little shaky.

Kyla can finally ride a bicycle without trainer wheels!!! I’m so happppyyyyy!!!!!!!!!
My brother brought her, Ariel and Denyse to the beach to cycle the other day. Ariel still has some days to go before she’s ready.

The other day, I left Elkan watching a movie on the laptop after a long day…. When I came back after my shower, he was dozing away.. man.. he must have been really tired….so cute hor..

A closer look… I just adore this boy.