Every Second Friday Someone is Killed

"About 400 people have been hanged in Singapore since 1991, most of them for drug trafficking, giving the wealthy city-state of 4.2 million people possibly the highest execution rate in the world relative to its population, rights group Amnesty International said in a report this year. "

Got this of a news wire service so i am not sure if it is accurate or not


"The death penalty is mandatory in Singapore for drug trafficking, murder, treason and certain firearms offences. Executions are by hanging and take place on Friday mornings at dawn. Families of convicts are normally only informed of the impending execution one week before hand" Amnesty International.


When i was younger, before i went in the army i was a firm supporter in the rule of aboslutes and a death sentance that has been carried out on a convicted person is an absolute and so i supported this. I belived that these people deserved to die for their crimes, murder, drugs and others but as i have grown older i feel that there are many reasons to reconsider the death penalty.

Firstly, if even 1 of those 400 hung over the past 14years is innoncent isnt that too expensive a price to pay? We may like to think its acceptable but tell that to the parents of someone who is wrongly hung.

Is it a deterent, i am not sure what the breakdown is, but 400 over 14years lets say 1/4 were drug dealers, not much of a deterent there isit? Serious drug dealers live in a world where at anythime they could be killed anyway, by competitors or just other hoodlums its not the death they fear, its the loss of everyting else. I mean they know they wll be hung if they get caught yet they still try. (i am not sure there is a deterent for drug dealers)

Murderers generally kill out of passion, one time and thats it, unless they are serial killers.
At the point of the crime they do not think about the punishment, they are are not thinking.

Does it make the child or the husband of a murdered women feel better, maybe but it will not bring the victim back.
In saudi arabia, death is the only sentance a murdere can get unless the male members of the victims families forgive him the murderer will be executed in a public square by having his head cut off. Family members can stop it at any moment, and normally judges, religious and others in authority always ask the family to forgive.

In my opinion, i think life in prison with hard labour is the best option (not a perfect option as well). It is not an absolute so if a mistake is made, the person though suffered is still alive. As a deterent, it may not be as scary as death but it may be a fate worse then death.

The Torah requires that, even in cases that allow the death penalty, Jews try to avoid imposing it. "We should try to find some merit in the person so that they should not receive the death penalty." Sounds the same as islamic practice.

400 hung over 14years, thats almost 2 a month that means every fortnight on friday someone dies by hanging. think about it.

The Commandment says "Thou Shalt not Kill" not "thou shall not kill, but"
i know if my family or friends were murdered i would want the killers chopped up and fed to dogs but that doesnt make it right.

I dont think there will be any pics i can post in here.

Sidebar- i have left the comments section open on this topic should any of the 2 people who read this blog wish to comment.

Curse of Chua CHu BLOODY KANG

So i had my weekend all planned out, supposed to be working for just half a day today. My plan was to take a train down to chinatown and take some pics, Sago lane, amoy st, trenganu st places like that but as with most of my best laid plans when i got to the office this morning everything went kaput! My boss(director) called and asked to help out another site as they had some staff issues to reslove like a fool i said ok! the place is called Yew Mei Green in CHUA CHU BLOODY KANG this area is cursed for me. When i was in the army they sent me to places as far from my home in tampines as possible, pulau tekong was the nearest camp i was ever in. Most of my army dayz were spent either overseas or in CHUA CHU BLOODY KANG and now this place has come back to bite me in the ass. Yew Mei Green was were i was sent to understudy before taking over my own site in lovely sengkang, it was my hope that i would never come back here again but lo and behold i have returned......So my lovely day in china town is ruined and i will have to make do with this place. The worst part of it all is that i will have to sit in on a job interview at 4 with the chairman of the estate and its for the same post that i hold, how odd is that. PICS to follow later in the day.


So the Board, C.E.O and Patron have all resigned, tis a shame as this puts this topic to bed or so it seems. I dont know if any laws were broken but i guess the problem is that most of us hate the fact that WE DID NOT KNOW what was going on and did not bother to find out, and once everyting came out WE jumped up and down in indignation, me included. At this point i take exception to only a few things, namly the car for his wife to use, the servicing of his private car using NKF funds, his involvement in other companies that directy benifit form him being involved in NKF. His pay to me is a non issue if he lead NKF to such a large surplus then commend him for that and reward him. The board should have taken more interest in his dealings with other comapines AND the Board shoould have been more open with the public, the Minister for finances put something interesting out there, are the NKF overcollecting? While there is nothing wrong with have a large reserve, every dollar they take may be a dollar that could have gone to a charity with more immediate needs. 25% of the bills i hope is just an average and i hope that it works on a case by case method where poorer patients may get even 100% coverage. In the, i guess resign was all they could do. They have to save the NKF and if they stayed public confidence would have turned against them even more. The press offered no comfort or safe haven, a lesson learnt here is that you should never try and fight with someone that buys ink by the barrel. As to the "peanuts" remark this isnt the first time we have heard this coming from up high, to me it shows the growing disconnect between the "upper- classes" and the middle and lower class groups. his pay packet of almost 1mil is fine in the context of what he has done however to call it peanuts simply shows that to these people who earn that kind of money in a week or a month it is PEANUTS and if that is peanuts i would like to pose this question should we be paying peanuts to someone who looks after hundreds of millions of dollars, because to me it seems that they got what they paid for, paid peanuts got (SCREWED)monkeys. Its an insult to all hardworking people, though it may be true...if they think 1mil is peanuts what do they think of the average wage of singaporeans and by extension what do they think of us

http://www.nkfs.org/board%20members.htm and it seems to me you lived your life like a candle in the wind....lol

sidebar- if they say that 1mill or almost 1mil is peanuts, my pay is worse than peanuts man.....its not even a bloody pea. Its the dust you brush off your hands after eating peanuts divided by 250.

thus far

Thus far i have done bugger all, the morning is mving as as slow as possible and i am in no mood to work. I shall as the youth of today say "slack off"

i havent really been blogging over the past two days , just ranting about the NKF and its massive cock up in court. Other than that the past couple of days have been busy ones at work, we had a council meeting last night and had plenty of prep work to do before hand. Spent lots of time walking the estate trying to sort everythng out. The meeting went well, long..but well.
My mum is going to Penang today, so lucky! TLOML is at home ill, but at least she has the the fatty for company. I cant wait for tom, am on half day and i think i may head into town as i have to pick up something from the land of crowds, smells and spit..chinatown. I think i will add a splash of colour to the area lol. I havent really had a chance to take many non work related pics so i am suffering from withdrawal.
I have to resize all the pics here cause i think they only give me 300mb of space for pics, i still havent been able to establish the print size for my pics, when i check the size of some of the pits there are very lagre 48inchs by 32 inchs, i am curious to know ii could actually print at that size if i went to a professional printer.
YES, i do like butterflies, i like the look of them, butterflies and dragonflies are my two fav subjects to photograph.( so far)
The camera is working out well, the lense has some limitations which i am having to work around but the shots are improving ....i hope.







I HATE CROPPING AND RESIZING!!!!

N.K.F II return of the tap

http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2005/07/nkf_drama_ends_.html
The above is damn funny.

Anyway i have been reading up on the continuing saga of Miracle Dude Durai, i doubt that he will be eating a very expensive dinner tonight, maybe just a little crow.
The NKF board should now publish a fiancial statement, they should clarify that they arpproved all fiancial transactions between the NKF and Dude Durai, they should clarify all the perks that he is entitled, including the first class travel, car and everything else. From what i understand his perks are pretty standard for a CEO for a company that handles this kind of cash, also his bonus i am sure is based on the amout raised for the nkf, this should be published. While i know that there is no legal reason to do so, at this point it is the only way for the NKF to regain the confidence of the public(me). IF we are to take Dude Durai at his word, then he himself removed the pricey fittings from his office bathroom, but looking at the pattern as proven in court, first class flight, great bonus, two cars (one his own but payments for tax and the like handled by NKF) it is possible that this guy does enjoy the good life, it is also entirely possible that someone within the NKF may have thought that he would want these items and so placed them there. With regards to his being involed with other companies that make a profit from NKF, if the board has approved such an arrangement and it is legal so be it, though to me it seems to be a pretty sticky wicket.
Legally maybe everything is hunky dory but in the many coffeeshop courtrooms or taxi tribunals its just not cricket.

Below is an except from the court proceedings, intersting theroy durai has...........

To Mr Davinder Singh's question on what the agenda was, Mr Durai said: 'NKF has been a strong supporter of MediaCorp, working with MediaCorp. SPH has its own TV station, MediaWorks. And they probably have strong reservations about with whom we work.' He added that SPH 'feels they are the regulating body on matters of how charities are run. They believe that they have strong views on how charities should be run. I believe they want to be the fourth estate, they are the determinants of public interest, determinants of transparency'.
damit this Davinder dude is scary man
Davinder Singh: NKF's point (on Aviva) was given due publicity, notwithstanding that there were two different views. Therefore, after the public knew what NKF's position was, there remains this difference of opinion, this controversy. Now you don't really mean that this was wholly manufactured by SPH, surely, Mr Durai?

T.T. Durai: Yes.

Davinder Singh: Thank you very much. Would you also agree with me since we are on this issue that SPH did not manufacture the controversy relating to your reserves, because you have alleged that? The reserves issue was also brought up by SPH in the papers.

T.T. Durai: Yes.

Davinder Singh: Is it still your position that SPH manufactured this controversy relating to your reserves?

T.T. Durai: Yes.

Davinder Singh: It is. Right. Then let us start. Was it SPH who initiated the story of the reserves?

T.T. Durai: SPH reported the articles...

Davinder Singh: The story of the reserves came up in another publication, Salt... NKF's reserves were $189 million as at 2002. Right?

T.T. Durai: Yes.

Davinder Singh: And if that is correct, you must accept that ST would then have a duty to communicate the information to the public at large.

T.T. Durai: To your explanation, you are right.

Davinder Singh: Therefore, SPH was only doing its duty.

T.T. Durai: You are right.

Davinder Singh: They didn't manufacture the story out of thin air to do you in.

T.T. Durai: Right.

Davinder Singh: Thank you very much. What SPH was doing was merely picking up on stories which you accept are of tremendous public interest.

T.T. Durai: That is so.

Davinder Singh: And you would likewise withdraw the allegation that SPH had an agenda against you.

T.T. Durai: Yes, I would think so.

Each year it costs NKF $31.6 milllion to treat its dialysis patients, but the patients pay about 75% of the bill, leaving NKF only $7.2m to take care of.

Should he resign? in my op no if he belvies he is right he should stay, if he did whatever is spelt out in his contract than he should stay and the board should step aside, but the best thing for the NKF would be if he took the bullet and left...i guess we will know public opinion tom, there is another show i wonder how much they will collect.

Birthday Greetings

ITS ALISON"S BIRTHDAY TODAY
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

N.K.F

I have beend reading with disgust and i admit alot of glee(nothing beeter then a good court battle) about the fiasco of the NKF suit against SPH.
Here is my take, they can pay this "CEO" whatever they want, but they should publish the figures the pay of the prime minister is pbulished why not this guy. They can give him a bonus of 10months thats fine but what is the criteria for this bonus and what does the average NKF staffer get. Flying first class? that he shouldnt be doing, biz class attains the same amount of comfort and the only difference is the price. A car for him and his family, thats fine but why a merc, why not a honda or some other cheaper car and why if he is earning 550k a year doesnt he just buy his own car. The worst thing is that he is also a director of a few other compaines that the NKF board is not aware of(as reported in the papers)
IT seems this lack of transparency is rampant in the NKF .The fact that the NKF has 1000 not 3000 patients is huge. where did the 2000 other people disappear to, have they been cured by some miracle of durai? if so then i say we give this man a 1million dollar bonus. The NKF has said over and over again that they could run out of funds in 3 years, 3 years we now find is a worst case senario and while it is good to prepare for the worst they have never told us what is the "probable" senario. You can do the math, 1000 patients 183million in reserve. To me this lack of transparency on the part of NKF seems to be a scare tactic, maybe they feel that if they dont let people know how much they really have we will keep donating and this is an understandable assumption However they have misjudged the donor spirit of singaporeans, we understand the need to keep reserves for a rainy day, we understand the need to reward people for good work, what we dont understand are free cars, first clas travel and gold taps.

A review of the process and procedure of the NKF should by carried out, an independant audit should be done and the results published, the NKF should go on a education blitz and tell us why we should donate money to them. We have had the wool pulled over our eyes, i belive singaporeans would have donated anyway if things were more transparent, as it is the NKF will move from a position where we look at it with respect and high regard to one where we distrust it altogether.And the people that need it the most will be the ones to suffer, that is the ultimate failure of the NKF.

Happy Birthday To The Moo

Today is the Moo's birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

The Doo and The Moo

Attack of the Moth

Was sitting here watching tv, surfing the net and playing with pepper(multi tasking galore) when i felt rather thirsty, en route to the kitchen i spotted this huge moth on the floor. Well i chucked the dog in the tv room with TLOML and procced to take some pics.

It was a placid fella and flapped gently around the room before it landed on my hand.

After taking this rather poor shot i let the thing fly out the window, where it is sitting watching me through the glass.

weekend memories

The Damn LENSE


Its been a fun day, even work was pretty laid back aside from the normal problems, popped over to my mums house to search for my old tamron lense. I found it under the bed heheh in pretty bad shape but nothing a good cleaning couldnt sort out. It took me two hours to clean the darn thing only to find out it doesnt fit my new camera! It made no sense cause it fit my old canon eos but it doesnt fit the new one! i really need to call someone and check out why. That i will admit was a downer, but lunch was good made sambal fried rice, the wife and i both had a hand in it and it turned out good.
TIE PIN DOOR GIFT
The big even of the day was a dinner at my old school, St Patricks Secondary...

(The above portion was written at 1am sunday morning, the below section was written monday morning at 1150am) The Mass Book

Back to the blog, Saturday night was a really fun night, Sherwin and i went to the blessing of new buildings at our old school. There was a mass followed by a nice dinner, 97 tables..i only heard the dinner was nice cause my other good friend Fr.Iggy (or friggy as he is know) was busy dragging us around the place meeting up with some old friends some of whom i have not seen for 15years. It was really nice to catch up with old teachers and friends most of whom cant belive that i married a kc girl much less a teacher. We sat at the current 4n1 table which was my old class and the table was set up just outside what was my old classroom which is now a foyer. These guys are nothing like what my classmates were, they seemed a clean cut decent lot of boys which is totally opposite to what me and my mates were like. Even the teachers seemed so young, shock of shocks one of my peers from school is now a teacher and from what i hear he is pretty strict.
St.Pats Booklet
I got to thinking that when i was leaving school these kids were still in the birth canal. The school was so different then it was geared to making a well rounded person, but we never focused on scolastic areas and spent most of our time trying to hoodwink teachers so that we could have a good time and boy did we have a good time. With hindsight i wish i had done things a little differently and tried to balance out fun and work. As a student all the big choices are made for you, what school to go to, what subjects to take and things like that but its the little descions that make the difference in the long run, skipping a couple of classes doesnt seem to be a big deal, but it gets bigger when they ask questions on the subject you missed during your o'levels and that doesnt seem such a big deal as well when ur taking your o's cause heck there is plaenty of time to retake them...then one day 10 years later you realise what a bad choice you made by skipping a couple of classes. That snowball keeps rolling down till it becomes a giant and crushes everything in its path. cest la vie eh...its karma

We had a good chat with a very nice lady who is a teacher there, social studies, and she was very nice i think my age if i am not wrong though she looks at least 5 years younger. She was asking us what school was like in our days and we were glad to tell her.
the night ended with Sherwin, Russel (a current patrician.the dude who helped us so much in getting the tickets, thanks RUSSEL!), Corey (a cousin and a current patrician) and myself standing at the 31 bus stop and chatting i was pointing out the old landmarks of my youth including the squash courts from where i first so the wife and barons court for where we watched the girls go by.

Sunday, the wife the doo and i planned to go to FARMART Center near Tengah , the moo wasnt planing to go cause she was supposed to be cooking but to our joy she managed to joins us so the 5 of us went for our little trip (the fatty lumpkin aka pepper came too) The puppy that we saw last week was still there and the two dogs really enjoyed themselves(pics on this will be posted later). Popped back to bedok res for a nice devil and bread lunch . We dropped by ems house for a 20min chit chat session and back home. It was a long day, the wife had devil for dinner while i made a sambal dory pasta which turned out pretty good .

Saturday was so fun that it as almost easy to forget U.Marcs Anniversary....but i had a cigar in memeory of him..

Side bar
the wife has also asked that i do not refer to her as the wife in my blogs as it seems very cattle like as such i will now refer to her as TLOML- The Love Of My Life

Pongol Park

Just in case anyone was wondering what is pongol park here is a pic taken from the roof of one of the buildings in my estate, it is resized for space.

Lunch in the park II

Went for another walk around the park today and came across a group of foreign workers fishing, it reminded me of my youth in Opera Estate when together with my neighbours, Ah Wee and Steven we would make out own fishing rods from branches, use thread for fishing line and needles for hooks, we never ever caught anything ... but we spent many hours trying to. We were more succesfull when we pinched small fish nets (used for fish tanks only) and caught drain fish and tadpoles. Back to pongol park, these 4 guys were fishing using branches, some fishing line and bits of leaf as floaters. Either their fishing skill is pretty good or the pond has too many fish( maybe abit of both) but these guys had caught about 5 little 3 or 4 inch fish by the time i got there.

The sun was too high for good photography, though i did get a couple of nice tree shots i got none of birds or insects. It was hot and it made me impatient.

I am looking forward to the weekend as i am sure most people are, still got half a day of work today and another half tom before i can enjoy any time off but hey next week i am off on saturday so yahooo to that.
Lagoon for dinner tonight with my sister's in-laws, shouldnt be too long, i would prefer a nice cold place like the airport but these fella's want to suffer in the heat of the outdoors. At least the wife can have her beloved fish soup, she has already stated that she would leave me for him anytime.
Back to work~!

Lunch in the park

I went for a stroll in the park at lunch, took with me a great little sandwich made by my dear wife, as always i brought my camera with me. I took two shots of the same flower but from different aspects, but i couldnt decide which one i prefer so i decided to put them both up.
Pongol Park is a nice quiet place and you would think for its size the wildlife would be minimal but, at just one lunch i saw, several birds of different species, two types of reptile(common green lizard and a water monitor baby) several types of bugs and assortd insects AND a type of reb insect i had only seen on the island of bintan at the base of a massive kapor/kapok tree of which pongol park has severl though much smaller. I have no clue as to the name of this insect..but i shall try and find out.There were a couple of old guys fishing but I think they were there more for company and conversation then anything else. This country could use a few more nice little parks, it made such a difference from eating at my desk or even at the coffee shop, the park is pretty quiet and i was happy to sit and enjoy my food away from the stress of work and having a ton of people around and i think those old guys felt the same way.


I dunno what i was trying to do here lol playign with clrsand stuff...

Morning Call

I was walking into work today when i saw these fools, so i took a couple of shots with every intention of sending it to the school (the fools were doing 2.4) but when i got back to the office i thought to myself how old am i if i am reporting kids for having fun albeit dangerous fun so i have decided to let it slide.

Teeing Off at Changi Golf Club

Sherwin and i went down to the Changi Golf Club yesterday i wanted to take the eos for another test run and sherwin wanted to take some pics as well. We went about 330pm but the timing was off as the sun was shining just a little too bright, made evertying thing seem less colourful although i am sure we got some nice shots while in the shade. Almost got killed by a golf ball.....Sherwin shouted just in time and i froze the ball landed with a thud and then bouced away i shudder to think how i would have felt if it had hit my camera...argh. I became much more carefull after that. The course was pretty crowded with people on almost all the holes that we stalked, as always lots of birdlife however i dont think i was really armed for good bird shots. The course is very nice with little slopes and some nice trees, they have a little pond and it was there that we spent most of our time shooting dragonflies and ducks. After a nice long walk we went to chanig village to get a drink and catch a cab home where the wife had prepared lovely hotdogs and i fried the chips. the hotdogs were great we had onions, tomatos, grated cheese and good old fashioned english mustard, to me the mustard makes the dog, with some sweet peas and chips as the side dish it was a very very nice meal. I had a very early night knocked off about 11 which for me is damn early. As i write this i am sitting in my office watching the world go by. Its going to be a long day today, working till 8pm argh!!


The Pics on this site have to be resized so there is some quality reduction(basically i had to shrink them)

easy come easy go...the end of a good weekend

Seems really quick but its over, the weekend has come and gone and tomorrow its back to the mines. Was a really busy weekend i must say, friday night had dinner with frodo, my mum, and alisons kids and a couple of friends or should i say family members, U.Jerry and A.Bessie. These are two of my oldest friends, and i have always said it but it deserves repeating they are a couple of my best friends. Always been there for me and my family as well as the servers those two folk are special people to me. Anyway we were supposed to go to pasir ris beach for dinner at a place we fondly call "short chairs" cause well they had really short chairs scattered around
near the beach. Shock of shocks its closed down!!!! Frodo and i stood there wondering what the hell happened to it, not a sign of it exists! life goes on i guess . We ended up at a quiet corner of the fishermans village, the food wasnt half bad but i forgot to get cash from the atm so was at the mercy of everyone else..heheh shit happens ya. After putting everyone in a cab frodo and i took a nice long walk, just talking about everything and anything had us a couple of cigars before we called it a night. I have always enjoyed long walks and great talks, its one of those things that make me feel good inside and frodo is a good partner for something like that. It strikes as strange how alike the two of us are, in thought that is, who would have guessed 5 years ago the way things would turn out.(or that they would rip away a nice little place on the beach, adios short chairs...)
<------THE NEW CAR
Saturday was more eventfull, the wife, the moo,the doo and I went into town to pick up the wife's new IPOD ( a nifty little device if ever there was one) . The thing was waiting for us at funan but we couldnt park anyhere near funan cause we we worried about the traffic caused by the IOC people and the NDP stuff going on at the padang, so we parked at golden shoe which as most people know is abit of a walk to funan. Having made our little trek through boat quay which i must say seems to be more of a resturant row than a club or pub place these days, we proceeded to pick up the ipod from a store that had dramatically rude staff. I hate rude people, there is no reason to be rude, someone holds the lift door open its not difficult to say thank you, or excuse me when u feel the need to shove past someone is not a great task. anyway i seem to have wondered abit, right the ipod, well its a nice shade of blue the IPOD took like 10mins to pick up but the search for the perfect skin was something like 45mins needless to say the ideal skin was discovered and all was well, then we did something silly. We went into a camera shop...called JOHN 3:16 where i met probably the best camera folk in town, polite smart and generous they let me take a canon eos 350d out for a test. I was sold, it didnt take much to get me hooked but the price was just out of my league(as always). We left John 3:16 and popped into Harvey Norman and low and behold the camera was cheaper, had a great bundle that included 2 x 1gb cards a tripod, camera bag, camera cleaning kit (2 of em) and the additional battery pack/grip AND they had a great interest free installment programe (thanks to the moo, who helped greatly with the purchase)
so what do you think we did, we went for ice cream and after much deliberation we went and got the camera!!!! YES I AM THE PROUD OWNER OF A CANON EOS 350D! A FINER THING OF BEAUTY I CANT CONCEIVE.
Now as if
that wasnt exciting enough, we had a great dinner at Em's place with lots of my favourite things, twas her birthday and while it is doubtfull she will ever read this HAPPY BIRTHDAY again!

Which leads us to sunday....with the new camera in tow the doo,moo and i went on a photographic adventure down the kranji trail at sungei buloh, of course i have a very very simple working knowledge of what is a complex piece of machinery and so spent lots of time fiddling with the camera. I took 1gb of pics!! mind you at 8mb per pic thats not difficult to do, i havent uploaded any of the pics yet but will do so soon. i am pretty sure that the moo took some great dragon fly shots as well but i must admit it was fun yet tough using the new camera. After walking for a couple of hours and then gettign a little snack and a drink we took a drive and found a strange and to my mind wonderous place...its called The Farmart Centre at Sungei Tengah Road, and gouped together they have an assortment of cottage industry type stores, from pet shops to a place selling croc meat to plant shops to a nice looking wine bar. We of course popped into a pet store(the second silly thing we did) where we fell in love with a little scruffy looking shih tzu(and thus we did the 3rd silly thing we took the puppy out and played with it), dirty face and all. The doo and moo seemed on the edge of getting it but i think the guy over priced his pooch at $900.00 so the pup wasnt purchased...and thus PEPPER's standing as top dog is safe! Finally dinner time sunday the wife and i went for a great dinner at fish N co at the ariport, i really like the calamari at this place got all the right mixes of spice and flour. I really enjoyed going out with the wife after such a busy weekend and it was the perfect cap to a great weekend, she was happy with her new car, i was happy with my new camera and we were happy with each other and all was well with the world...



untill this morning when i came to the office but that my dears is a blog of another colour....

Adieu Esmiralda

Left the office at 4 yesterday so that the wife and i could send her beloved car aka esmiralda to the happy hunting grounds known as the scrap heap. Twas an emotional outing to say the least. Esmiralda was her first car and has been an integral part of the family for some years now but lately her lungs (aircon) and other parts just dont seem to be working as well as they should. Having made the decision to replace her, a new car was ordered (a suzuki swift) and emsi's time was up. I must say it was all done very tastefully, we parked the car at the suzuki lot and went in to do some paperwork and when we came out of the shop...she was gone. People have said it was just a car but to me and the wife it was more than that, she was the little chariot that could, she was the car that drove my sister to hospital when she was going to give birth to her 3rd child, she drove us many happy miles with her radio blaring (terrible reception) and the wife and me singing along with all the wrong words. She had great doors, many times i slammed them in anger and they never gave the slightest hint of damage. Her boot was always a mystery to me...i was always told that "its full" i never knew of what lurked in its depths. She was also the car that we brought our little bundle of joy Pepper home in, Esmi was one of the many vehicles in our wedding convoy, May was behind the wheel that time.
What i will miss most is the fun we had when little esmi would overtake a bmw or some other fancy car, we would cheer her on with crys of "come on esmi, you can do it" though she rarely did......i hope that they turn her into coke cans, that would be the perfect....

We had a little memorial dinner at the SAF YACHT CLUB, Tanah Merah. Very nice looking place right up against the sea, the water was choppy and the wind was strong...anyone looking for a nice quiet place to eat , go there. Its run by the folks from coachmen inn.

PAY DAY? More like PAY OUT DAY

I am sure there are alot of you out there that will agree with this post, PAY DAY SUCKS.
It never used to, it used to be a time of excitement a time a day when workers would gather in pubs and bars and drink to their hearts content and i used to be in there drinking and shouting with the best of them. Suddenly things have changed i dunno if its the pay that got smaller or the drink prices got bigger but there aint no party no more.
These days on pay day the money comes in and i wonder if its enoguh to pay all my bills most of the time its not its becoming a very cheque to mouth existence. I try and cut my cost but there really isnt anything to cut, i dont go out, i dont gamble, i dont have a girl on the side so where does it all go nobody knows. I am sure that there are many of you folk who feel the same way or are in a similar position, some day i know it will be better and that is the optimist in me talking. The realist in me says its been like this for the past 10 years(except for small burst of cash flow) whats gonna change...but i know i work hard at every job i do and i am a loyal employee and even though i have no qualifications to be proud of i would be an asset to any comapny wants me! So some day it will change and i will be in the pub drinking with the best of them....or maybe not. such is life.

111 Amoy St and a Friend

I was talking to law today and mentioned the old office in amoy st, he had never been there so i dug up another old pic from 2000, it was a tiny little attic space type office but uncle marc and i worked there until he died, then i tried to carry on with some friends...i think the person that spent the most time there beside me was brad, many nights we sat at the conference table packing stuff for sale and just talking, it was a great office..twas a sad day when i had to give it up but life keeps moving on and all we are left with are memories and maybe a few pictures, next month will be u. marc's death annivesary, many people have said many things about the man, some good and some not so good but for my part i will always think of him as a man who gave up everything for his boys. He was always there for the servers and we considered him one of our own. I know that most of you have no clue who i am talking about, but for those of you who remember him say a prayer for a good man.

We meet people like this throughout our lives, people who make a difference, these are people who make such a mark on our lives that when they leave a part of us goes with them but a part of them stays with us forever. Through the barriers of age, culture and so many other differences we form a bond with them, to others he or she may seem to be a negative influence or a bad person, but a person who has bad traits is not necessarly a bad person and we must always try and find the good in people.

As for me 96360810 is still the first number i think about when i need help and its always a couple of seconds before i realise that he is gone,gone but never will he be forgotten....not by his boys. At his wake it was his boys who stood guard for 4 nights over his body, it was his boys who carried his casket and it was his boys who showed him our respect. That last genuflect was a moment that i will carry with me.

Maids saga

I often wonder what goes through the minds of people, last week we had a young indonesian girl prob around 20yrs old, she came into my office and was sobbing saying that she wanted to run away from her employers house where she was working as a maid, she said the employer did not allow her to eat anything except a dinner time and even then it would be scraps or left overs. She was not allowed to have breakfast, lunch or tea, she had to be up at 5am and was allowed to sleep only after the last person went to bed. The thing that struck me the most was that here she was crying while next to her in the pram sleeping soundly was the employers baby, the silly employer was practically treating the maid as a slave yet they calmly allowed her to look after the child. The maid by this time was in no state to control her emotions and was really letting it rip, she called the maid agency who told her that she HAD to stay there for at least 8 months before they could transfer her out, so she called the indonesian embassy who told her to get in a cab and go to the consulate where a guard would pay her cabfare. She was all set to go and leave the baby alone in the house, her fear of her employer was so great that she wold have just abandoned the child, we talked her out if it and she waited till the owners came home and when they left for dinner with the baby, she ran for her life.
Needless to say the employers got a new maid asap and today that maid ran away too. One day they are goimg to get a maid who will take it out on the baby and maybe then they will learn their lesson, that the maid they treat so badly is someones baby too.

Its disgusting to read in the papers who say things like these maids dont deserve days off or that the money we pay them is more then a kings ransome, treat them as people, treat them as living beings who deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, not scorn and abuse. I think that people who abuse maids should become maids as punishment for at least 3 months instead of gong to jail, that will teach them.

Ode to the boss

i wish i was a fly, sitting on a wall, if i was a fly i'd spit upon you all.
i wish i was a mosquito buzzing all around, if i was a mosquito in your blood i'd drown
i wish i was a rat roaming in your house, if i was a rat, your so dumb you'd think i was a mouse.