Thursday, May 29, 2008

It's confirmed...

Ah mei is coming to Houston in exactly two weeks' time! I'm excited!I'm now busy thinking of what barang barang I should ask her to bring back to Spore for me. *evil smile*

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Bleeding pocket again

I hit the pillar while reversing my car today! Now it has some scratches on the passenger door and a huge dent at the edge. I remembered telling myself to be careful when backing out of the lot when I first parked there more than a week ago. Then after the vacation, I totally forgot about it. Urgh!

Heard from Zing that it will cost at least US$400 to repair the damage. Seems that bad things really come in threes. Hope no more bad luck with the car after this.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

We are back!

After 10 days of grizzly bears, black bears, moose, elks, bisons, goats, chipmunks, squirrels, bald eagles, robins, butterflies, geysers, mud pots, hot springs, thermophiles, mountains, snow, movies, and soccer, we are finally back in boring Houston. Will update more when I have the time.

Looking forward to our cruise this coming Sun. Heh.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Championes!


Everything I need to say is captured in this photo.
Congrats Fergie, and let's Follow, Follow, Follow.... Coz United are going to Moscow!!

Monday, May 12, 2008

Bleeding pocket

I noticed I couldn't reverse my car without pressing the gas pedal which was unusual. Then I heard a flapping sound as I drove out of the garage....just before I reached the gate, I decided to stop the car to check. The tire on the front driver side was totally flat!

Cost of repair: $0

Yep, it's free cos the tire is apparently still under warranty and NTB managed to patch it. I changed the front tires slightly more than a year ago. So why am I complaining? Cos I was told that my two back tires had not been changed since the car's birth in 1999. That cost me a whopping $340! Add another $40 to the oil change which I had not done in a long time.

Total cost: $380!

I've spent more than $1k on my car just this year - from changing catalytic converter, brake light, coolant palange, and now the tires.. I am so damn poor now! Anyone cares to give me a donation?

Oh, one good thing was I discovered it today (Sun afternoon). If I only discovered it tomorrow morning, I wonder how I will be able to go to work.

Championes, Championes!

Ole, Ole, Ole......

I woke up at 8am this morning to watch the last Premiere League match of the season with Tim at Richmond Arms, an English pub. Freak... I must be crazy! Waking up so early on a Sunday morning with just 5 hours of sleep. That's what they call love... Love for my hubby... not Man U!

Now, what time is the Champions League match gonna be? Yawn....I'm so sleepy now and it's only 12 noon.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Yellowstone or Moscow

Updated

We are supposed to leave for Yellowstone next Friday. But now we are in a kind of dilemma. Tim's fren balloted successfully for a pair of tix to the Champions League final in Moscow. Liverpool, the team, his fren supports, did not make it to the final. But Man U did! Yippee! He offered to sell Tim the tix a few days ago at face value. Tim declined the offer...One of the reasons was the difficulty in gettin the visa processed on time.

But with the recent announcement that tourist visa might be waived for tix holder who stays in the country for only 72 hours, Tim is suddenly all excited about going. He called his fren up but the tix have since been put on sale on an online auction.

Here's the list of things that will make the trip possible:

1. SIA airtix to Moscow is only US$750. Other airline tix cost at least US$2k. It is relatively cheaper because SIA just started a direct flight from Houston to Singapore with a stopover in Moscow in March.
2. We got our leave booked all along - for Yellowstone that is.
3. We have a fren who is willing to sell us the tix at face value

Things that work against us:

1. The tix might be sold afterall. Last heard, a pair of tix can go as high as 2,000 pounds.
2. There is no accommodation available in Moscow. Most of the establishments have been booked solid.
3. We will be "flying" pegster and Ms Mok "aeroplane" if we choose to go to Moscow now.
4. Visa might not be waived for all nationalities.
5. According to 2007 Mercer report, Moscow is the most expensive city in the world. It will cost us a bomb to stay there even for a couple of days. What's more, we are thinking of just paying for the tourist visa and staying here for all 10 days of our leave. hee.

Update: We are going Yellowstone! Nevertheless, we will still look for a place to watch tha match, although that might be hard considering we will be in a National Park and none of our accomodation have internet access or TV.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Weekend

UPDATED

It's the weekend again! This is the fourth weekend that I'm staying at home...I realized I am pretty good at entertaining myself and in fact beginning to enjoy the personal time I have. Here's my to-do list for the weekend.

1. Gym - to have at least half an hour of workout on both days. (It's already Tuesday, I still haven't hit the gym yet)

2. Yellowstone - I am supposed to take over the planning of the Yellowstone activities cos Tim has been too busy to do anything else except to work a lot, study a bit, eat a little, sleep a little and read soccer news frequently. He's beginning to lose weight. The belly is shrinking! Anyway, I need to start making reservations for the various activities we have in mind. (I finally started the guide book Tim bought many months ago and fell asleep. Why does the book only give facts and history of the places to visit but never really describe those places in detail to make me look forward to seeing them in real life? The Yellowstone book is nothing like Maui Revealed which really kept me interested the whole time. Hmm... is it really the book or is it just me being lazy and coming up with excuses not to plan?)

3. Cruise - Since I am will be at it, I may as well plan the activities for our cruise trip, right? Three days onshore and we still have freaking no idea what we want to do. By the time we come back from Yellowstone, we will be left with only 5 days to plan. (Yeah, reservations have been made! Well, I did not plan it by myself. The four of us discussed about it. If not for Zing, we probably will not get down to doing it.)

4. WBLs - These are online courses that we have to take to fulfil our CPE credits for the year. I have consistently significantly exceeded the CPE credit requirement every year. Nonetheless, there are two courses which I specifically indicated to take as one of my Goals for this fiscal year that I have yet to start. I better do it before the end of this fiscal year as I've indicated in my self review that I will complete them before the end of the fiscal year. Then again, the round table starts next week. Don't think it will matter since even if I do it now it will not be captured in the report in time. (I started on one of the WBLs on Sunday. There are five chapters. After spending 2 hours, I am still at chapter 2.)

5. Prison Break - I think I stopped at disc 3 or 4. It's been a while since I rent the dvd. I've become so lazy that walking to Blockbuster (a mere 3-min walk) is a chore. (It's still a chore to take the 3-min walk so rather than watched Prison Break, I looked for the Korean drama PW passed to us a year ago in my closet instead and finished watching it in 3 days. ha.)

6. Vacuum - I need to vacuum the floor badly. The things are strewn all over - mostly by me but I'm sure Tim contributed a little. Time to do some cleaning again. (It's still as messy as ever. Enuf said.)

7. Recipes - It's been a while since I try a new recipe. This weekend is probably the best time to do it. as after which, we will be traveling. I must put the Donna Hay books to good use. (I did try a new recipe - Deep Fried Pandan Chicken. But the recipe came from a food blog. The presentation was excellent but the taste was only so so... somehow the smell of the pandan did not infuse onto the chicken and it did not help that I forgot to put sugar and also accidentally poured too much fish sauce. Some say the end-product tastes like fish but is in fact chicken while others say it is fish that look likes chicken. I say it should be bacon-chicken instead cos I used the oil from exactly 12 pieces of bacon to deep fry the chicken. Can you imagine the amount of fat a piece of bacon has?!! No, the recipe did not call for bacon oil. It just happened that I was frying some and thought it will be a waste not to use oil esp since even the cost of cooking oil has increased.)

8. Shopping - Nay, I had enuff of shopping last week (all two hours of it). I need to help my cousin-in-law buy some Avent baby products. It's available at Baby r us. I've no idea where is the nearest store. Will need to check it out online. (I still have one more weekend to do it)

9. Study - It's been a while since I read the regulations (IRC Section 482 is the section guidelines for Transfer Pricing). Time to refresh my knowledge again. Don't wish to embarass myself with the lack of technical knowledge in front of the many new hires coming in this summer. (I tried reading a couple of pages. At least there is some effort, no?)

10. TO DO THE ABOVE! (Procrastination is my middle name)

Hopefully I will check off most of the items by the end of Sunday.

Friday, May 02, 2008

I realized I met two types of "gui" today.

1. 贵人= lucky star
2. 鬼= nemesis from hell. (say it in hokkien and it becomes "to tio gui")

In retrospect, I should have gone to Canada two days earlier. Then I would not have "to tio gui"

Nemesis

I met my "gui ren" today. But I also met my very first work nemesis. A supposed wonderful day has turned into a I'm-so-damn-pissed-day. He has been the source of alot of work-related problems. I wish I can throttle him. *visualizing him pleading for mercy* sweet.