The week gone by

What a busy week. I shall focus only on the good for this post!
During the week we had TLOMLs cousins drop by, for a short visit. Although a short visit it was an enjoyable one none the less!
After that we went to Ikea to pick up some Christmas stuff with Mum, Alison and the 3 kids. I was a little disappointed with Ikea’s Christmas stuff I found it pretty poor in relation to what they normally have, so we did not pick up a live tree as all the live trees looked terrible. We left Ikea and popped down to the John Littles sale at the Singapore expo, I got lots of new stuff (thanks honey) although they too had a drought of Christmas goodies. All in all I enjoyed our little outing although it may have run abit long. We were really tired by the time we got home.
Saturday was the return of the sisters day and after work I went to mummy’s house for lunch, My sister Jocelyn and hubby Scott had arrived at some ungodly hour of the morning after an 18hr flight! I can barely take 1hr on the bus! The horror the horror. After a pleasant lunch I made my way to bedok res where Tuffy and her beau Jamie were(along with another lovely meal), for those that don’t know Tuffy is TLOML’s sister. ( I shall not blog too much on these two arrivals as my wife and sister shall be doing it all)
Today was a really long day for some reason or other I woke up at 530, looked out my window and saw it was raining. Terrific a nice morning of photography (at kahtib bongsu) was cancelled or rather delayed with an sms to Philip. I tried to get back to sleep. It was not to be, there was no second wind and I tried a bit of reading and wondered around my empty home(TLOML and fatty were staying and the doomil mansion) till around 730 when the rain had slowed to a drizzle and off we went. Philip got some good shots of kingfishers with his new zoom lense while I sat and watched ….sigh for a 300mm my kingdom for a 300mm . Not much in the way for other bird life but kahtib bongsu is an interesting place to go to. I am sure I will make a return trek.
Once again we went back to my mums house for a great pepper crab lunch, and of course they decided to play scrabble….i politely declined to participate and helped out from the sidelines…it was a lot safer. Anyway just a simple post with lots of pics today…maybe I will elaborate tomorrow . (All pics are reduced to around 25% of the original size. Typos should be forwarded to bill gates care of mircosoft)

Little friends

I took the kingfisher using philips Sony camera










Just some little friends from kahtib bongsu.

Of course i get stressed.

Today i was told by a friend of a friend that I seem to be the happiest person around and dont have a care in the world, she gets this from reading my blog. i guess from reading my blog it can be assumed that all is grand and life is rosy, but alas it is not always so. Like everyone i have problems, money or the lack of it, work and the TOXIC people that i am forced to be around there. Health my constant worry about TLOML and the baby, family. I have unhappy days or rather unhappy moments like anyone else. I have stress, maybe i dont show it as much as other people but its there this constant naggin feeling that this whole thing is going to come crashing down.
Take for example office politics, in an office of four people you wouldnt belive the politics that is going on, i do my best to stay out of it becuase there is no purpose..its not like i am going to get a pay raise from it so why bother. But these fools feel the need to lie and spread rumours about everyone, example "that guy is on the take" or "that guy is tryign to steal my job" when all i want to do is work, get paid and go home to where my life begins. my life is not centered around my job. IT is a job. My life is centered around my family, my friends. By trying my best to live to that motto i realise that i must give my ALL to my Family and Friends not to my job, i do work hard and i do it well BUT that is not the most important thing to me. Thus alot of the work related stress seems to not matter so much, it does bother me but not as much as it used to. Things like am i the best staff in the company or am i selling enough of my soul so that the bosses can get more profits...they dont seem so urgent anymore. If my job required me to travel i would, if it meant that my office hours are 8 to 8 dialy so be it. But once the clock is off then i am gone and dont expect me to stay behind to cover your ass. When i die i want ot be able to say i spent all my time with family and friends NOT WORK. So thats how i deal with work stress.

Another thing that helps lot i find is my blog, it allows me to rant and rave but it also helps me focus on the good things that happened in the day or during the week. Because i want my blog to be a positive one i try and focus on the good things, like my dog in joyus raptue eating her bone, or my family playing scrabble together or even on my photography(someone told me my nature shots are ok but i need help with composition in the rest) which i really enjoy doing. I encourage everyone to have a blog, it is a great destresser. Most of the peopel that come in here dont even read my extra long rants but hey at least i know i have a venue to vent without anyone else being forced to listen.

With more then 10 hours a day including transport time taken up by work, at least 8hrs a day taken up by sleep that leaves less then 6 hours a week day on average to be with loved ones and friends or doing the things u love. 6 hours. Thats why if i could, every weekend would be a family weekend out doing something, Anything, but with family or friends. To me thats the best destresser of them all.

1 YEAR OLD TOM

HAPPY BIRTYDAY!
ZORRO & PEPPER

The kingfisher weekend.

So its been a busy weekend for me, yesterday i went to ubin. Lat night dinner at kingfisher, this morning Philip and i went bright and early to seletar camp to try and photograph some birds. No luck, we spotted a lovely kingfisher but i was unable to capture the moment. After a nice walk and a good breakfast at the kingfisher club once again, we came back to my place to meet up with Alison the kids and TLOML. From the picture you can see that THEY decided to play scrabble, i stayed out of it! After lunch they went home while we attempted to nap, but of course no luck there either. So we along with Mama Lucy met the Machado's back at the kingfisher club where they took the kids for a swim..when we like a place..we really like a place. (please note that a certain word was placed, went unchallenged by all and points awarded).Check out the second pic of the scrabble wars...they dont look so happy here do they! The kids were really tired after swimming with Michael falling asleep in his chair poor fella, what a busy day he had.

Aside from all this activity we decided to take our family potrait today! In was a total failure from start to finish, with certain members behaving badly. I shall not name names. Only the little bambino(seen here in a pic held my TLOML) was well behaved.
I was also informed that although i put some pics of the christmas deco on the tree, the tree itself was not displayed. Note the angel trying to escape.
The last pic was actually the first i took today, and i just wanted to show how blue the sky was, a clear bright sunny day. Today was a good day.

What everyman should have on his desk

I am sitting here checkign my mail, chatting with folks on msn, reading up o nthe news and i thought it would be nice to show you a little bit of my work space here at home, I share it with Mischa and its a bit small but we are hoping to do something about that real soon.
Click on the pic to read the little bits i wroteWent(with Machado's and Friends) for a lovely dinner in seletar army camp, nice place called the Kingfisher club and it was execllent, abit expensive but the place is great, they have a pool, gym, squash court, tennis court, bar, billard table darts..very nice..and all set in a great place seletar camp. I reckon i may turn out to be a regular cause it looks like we are going back tom morning for breakfast. The owner(Philip's friend) says that the area is great for birdwatching and walking so, we shall recce tom.

Pulau Ubin

I took photographed this old lady at the jetty. Below her picture is the old malay coffee shop that has had a new roof
put on. And below that is the view of the island from the jetty.



The two pictures below are of a small jetty and building within the main village








I woke up today and went to Pulau Ubin, grey skies,(pic below is a typical st in the village) non stop drizzle did not make for a good morning of photography but i was in the mood to do something and as Mischa was going out i decided to carry on with my little jaunt. I wasnt in the best of moods as well but i figured a nice pleasent morning would set things right.
I have a long history with Ubin, i first went there in 1985 i was 12yrs onld and my brother who was in the army had booked an SAF chalet in changi.(left-was the clinic now seafood rest) It was a friday and everyone was out and i was supposed to have gone to school but i decided not to go, taking my fathers field glasses and with $1 in my pocket of i went.(Right-Typical village buildings) Of course it was the old jetty which has been replaced twice already since then, the boat fare was 50cents one way.(Left-Stage at the main "square") I remember being pretty darn scared, firstly i didnt know anything about the place or what to expect but i decided to act like i knew what i was doing and no one would bother me.(Right-Old ladies shop, new door,roof and well pump) The boat docked at the ubin jetty which itself has been replaced twice over since then as well and off i went. The first (Left-Mum, Alison, Megan,Baba and i took shleter 3 years ago lol)that that you will notice on ubin these days is the number of bicycle rental stores but back then all you saw were motorcycles literally hundreds of them and kids that looked like they were 10yrs old we riding around on them, natives i guess. (Right-We used to call this the Kongsi house, this guy had a pet monkey)You also had an assortment of cars and pickups that acted as an unofficial taxi service, they would drive these things around until the machines died and they would just chuck them in the bush. You would be walking along some small isolated track and come up vehicles in various states of decomposition.
Anyway back to my first trip, aside from the motorcycles they were dogs, lots and lots of dogs that were roaming the streets big ones little ones all over the place. (Left-Typical house inland, approx 10yrs old)To me it seemed that when i stepped off the jetty and into the village everyone stopped and stared, of course this was prob not true but hey i was a kid.
That first time i didnt walk very far, just around the village and a short distance along the road. I spent maybe two hours there, mainly because i was scared stiff..thought i was going to be attacked by a pack of dogs or hacked to death by some weirdo.(Below Right-House on stilts as seen from village) Two hours, that was all it took for me to get bitten by the ubin bug, over the next 10 to 15 years i was to return as many times as possible, camping, cycling or just to walk around. (Below Left-Typical road, used to 50% dirt 50% gravel)I became familiar with some of the old buildings and even a few of the people, i watched the island change from a rustic, quiet, clean place to a busy, some times dirty place where bike rental and sea food seem to be the mainstays of life. Lots of buildings have disappeared, the old school is gone now, the clinic which was open only a couple of days a week and even then only for a few hours is now a seafood center. Alot of the old small houses rotted away and returned to the ground. Sad? in away when things like that are lost they cannot be remade, not the same way. The old man(sold fish on tuesdays fresh from the sea) that ran the malay coffee shop in the village is gone as well, his wife is still there though i doubt she would have any recollection of me.
Many happy memories, of the guys of our adventures our long talks and long walks of campfires and maggi mee, of swimming, night walks, laughing always laughing. They say an average child under laughs 160 times a day while an adult laughs only 16 times, whats missing in our lives or as the song goes "maybe they have a better understanding"
(The asian-pied-hornbil, was too good to miss, pity i only had a 50mm lense would have been good shots)





All pics have been resized. some have been edited for the heck of it. i took some of the pics in black and white.If you notice any typos please email to darshansingh@changiprison.com

Its a tangled web

Google news- some of the things we have in common with the states.

NEWS.com.au

Singapore Hangs Australian Drug Smuggler
Voice of America - 55 minutes ago
By Nancy-Amelia Collins. Singapore has executed Australian drug smuggler Nguyen Tuong Van, rejecting requests from Australian Prime Minister John Howard to spare the condemned man's life. While death penalty ...
Hanged man's last message NEWS.com.au
Nguyen died ' courageous death' Advertiser Adelaide
The Age - Sydney Morning Herald (subscription) - BBC News - CNN International - all 1,270 related »

CJAD

US executes 1 000th prisoner since 1976
Mail & Guardian Online - 2 hours ago
The United States on Friday executed its 1 000th prisoner since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Kenneth Lee Boyd, a convicted double-murderer, was pronounced dead at 2.15am (0715 GMT) after a lethal ...

Every dog has its day.

So i got Pepper aka fatty a nice bone today, its called BREATH-A-LICIOUS a functional dental treat for a kissable companion, we just call it minta bone and she loves it!! She tears through the bone like a wild hunting dog ripping a springbok apart. My very own little wolf. Just look at her face, i wanted to add captions but i think in this case pictures speak louder then words.

Family, Food and the Englishman

My mum had an old friend(more family) staying over for a couple of days from England, actually he was stopping over on his way back to England from Australia and when he gets home he will only be there for a week before he takes off for Antigua where we have more relatives! This is the second time i am meeting William and once again i enjoyed myself, its nice to meet people who can put the details on things that happened years ago. He knew my dad and almost all of my mums relations. IF you want to hear a fascinating tale, this is the guy.
Anyway he is flying off tonight so we went to Lagoon for dinner.....i am stuffed now...(i forgot to put in michaels name).Above is the food 3 mins after arrivng at the table.
Below, the same food after we were though.....not a pretty site i must say.

Changing Styles

For the few of you that read my blog(you know who u are, bet you like the spice girls too) you may have noticed some changes...i hope you like them. I have found yet another way to display my vanity using my pictures as the background for my blog. I fear i will feel the need to change the look often. LEt me know what you think? Thanks!