Sleep.

Sidebar-----could not decide between one of the other so posted both.

My sweet princess,
Lay down, rest your weary head, sleep.
Dream the dreams I send.
for the dawn comes too soon
and the sun shall call you to labour.
or

My sweet princess,
Lay down, rest your weary head, sleep.
Dream the dreams I send.
for the dawn comes too soon
and the sun shall call you out of slumber

Thunder.

The roar of thunder shatters the night, peaceful bliss blown out of sight
Awakened by a thumping heart, the fear and panic are quick to start.
A glance at the window the true tale tells as rain falls down in an awesome swell.
Thunder bangs out as if to speak “awaken, arise and hear my cry. Open your eyes as I light up the sky”

Random Thoughts.

The harder you try to keep things the same the faster they seem to change.
All we can do in the midst of all the seemingly random events is to hold on to the ones we love, hold them tight with our hands or in our memories.
I feel we were all born destined to love and be loved and the journey is best when we hold on to that knowledge.
Life knocks you down when you least expect it, sometimes it’s by our own hand that we fall sometimes its just…life. but never have I been down and there wasn’t someone there to offer me comfort.
The choices of our youth sometimes point us to the path our lives take but the path is not fixed, where there is life there is hope.
Its never too late to forgive or ask forgiveness, even at the last breath.
Tough guys do cry.
Family isn’t just the people you are connected to by blood, but by soul.
A harsh word spoken and forgotten a minute later is better then being bitter in silence for years.
Life isn’t perfect and neither are we, that’s what makes us all special.
Being you is better then trying to found out who you are.
Holding hands is better then ice cream.
Hearing the word Daddy every morning is the sweetest sound of all.

Adios

People change, thoughts, words and deeds fade.
Friendships that stood the test of time fail the test of life.
It seemed so much easier when things began, so much easier before they fell apart.
If things were different surely they would be the same.
So while walking away is not as easy as standing still
sometimes thats all we can do to put the distance between ourselves and the painful past.
So i bid you adieu and don't bite the bedbugs.

Return to puppyhood

When Pepper was a puppy.

The Pupper Pepper

The Pepper.

Hmmm yes..i see

I was looking through my old copies of National Geographic and came across this one from 2001, very interesting article.

Below is the Gastropoda Purplis. I waited for 2 hours before it came out of its shell for this one shot.

You may have gotten these pictures from me before. if so too bad.

Awww. Just the frist pic lol

This is picture along with the one of the paws are slightly older pictures which i do not think have been seen on my blog. I really do like the picture of TLOMY and our lil bambino

A rather active ant

I thought the flowers had a nice colour about them.

Taken around Kandahar.....lane in singapore's very own Arab Street

The Journey of Imperfection-J.M. Tembelling

The Journey of Imperfection-J.M. Tembelling

It begins with laughter joy and tears and as we grow it seems to lead to pain and all our greatest fears death of loved ones, rejection of love offered and the reality of an all impending adulthood come too soon.
Infant to toddler, toddler to child, child to youth, youth to the place we rush to be but wish to reject once we get there. The place where we cannot hide behind out mothers skirts or climb on our father’s broad shoulders, Adulthood.
It is also where we start our serious search to find that perfect partner, the One with whom our relationship will be like every love story ever written, every love song ever sung and every movie about love ever made. Our search to find the one person that will paper over our own imperfections, our journey is far and winding and at times it seems never ending but one day, maybe at the movies, the mall or maybe sitting down at the bus stop we meet and it seems perfection is there to greet us surrounded by a choir of angels . As our love grows so too the distinct impression that there is no perfection, maybe its his temper maybe its her impatience but the very real journey begins when we discover that the past matters not, the future has yet to be written and all we should hold on to is the very real prospect of losing the now with our obsession of that phantom of literature, perfection .
Minute by minute, hour by hour day by day our journey filled with imperfections makes us understand that in finding someone to paper over our flaws and flakes we have found someone who needs just as much paper as we do
And in the midst of all this imperfection and rude awaking we find that we have found through total serendipity what is perfect both to and for us. A discovery that is there for the taking everyday.

Sidebar-I suspect that this post will get not comments lol

Water Babies.

Sunday which was TLOML birthday, went by rather quietly due to to someone getting alcohol poisoning. Any way the afternoon found us blowing up Caitlin's wading pool which her Godpa bought for her birthday party. Seeing how much she was enjoying herself we realized that Michael would enjoy it just as much so after a quick call and a fast dash by Alison we had the two cousin in the pool. LEts not forget i do live in a hdb flat and we do NOT have a garden but it all went well. I suspect the first of many more pool days. Pepper was supposed to go in as well but chickened out at the last min.

As i write this i am listening to Oasis-Live Forever, Stop Crying Your Heart Out, as well as Archie Bilks Strange On Shore.

Assortment.

Just an assortment of pictures i found after trawling through my archives. I dont even know if i have posted them before.

Of Fireflies, Canines and Pork the other white meat.

Ubin. Popped over to Pulau Ubin for a bbq and an all nighter with the boys on Saturday. Lets not talk about Saturday. MOst of my Saturday was a fiasco.

We had a nice night full of conversation, laugher and even singing and lets not forget the great food auds and aaron did a mighty job preparing our feast with tons of stuff they brought supplemented by things brought by the rest of us we actually did have more food then needed!(to our fire chiefs good job).
I finally knocked off around 5ish after strolling around on the beach, watching the dogs try sneak as close to our site as possible i feel really bad for these dogs, they are really cute and for the most part gentle but its really a dogs life out there i doubt pepper would have laster 1 night.
Sunday morning saw us arise to a Grey dawn, after the clouds wrung themselves dry overhead, a couple of us went round the back to the swamp to try and track wild boar. We were pretty successful having tracked a boar into a thicket but failed to catch a glimpse of the swine. The spooky part was seeing the boars tracks overlap ours(tracks that we had made less then 5mins before) ! I think Mark has been bitten by the boar tracking bug and i am sure we will do this again. Anyhow it was a short night a short camping trip but i like the outdoors so i enjoyed myself. I ALMOST forgot the best bit for me. a firefly visted our campsite and hung around for abit , i will say that this thrilled me no end!While i am still disappointed with what has become of Noordin beach, i find that after going to ubin for almost if not more then 22yrs it still has the capacity to surprise me. I really cant wait till Caitlin can join me, i dunno if she has this bit of me in her blood but i would love for her to give it a go and maybe see a firefly or two.

The Unsual Suspects

At 2 am there was a lull in the conversation so we decided to take some weird pictures.I'd like to stress i had no tripod while taking these pics.

Our Ubin Fighter Series

Times Of Your Life

PAUL ANKA lyrics - Times Of Your Life
Good morning, yesterday
You wake up and time has slipped away
And suddenly it's hard to find
The memories you left behind
Remember, do you remember

The laughter and the tears
The shadows of misty yesteryears
The good times and the bad you've seen
And all the others in between
Remember, do you remember
The times of your life (do you remember)

Reach back for the joy and the sorrow
Put them away in your mind
The mem'ries are time that you borrow
To spend when you get to tomorrow

Here comes the saddest part (comes the saddest part)
The seasons are passing one by one
So gather moments while you may
Collect the dreams you dream today
Remember, will you remember
The times of your life

Gather moments while you may
Collect the dreams you dream today
Remember, will you remember
The times of your life
Of your life
Of your life

Do you remember, baby
Do you remember the times of your life
Do you remember, baby

Do you remember the times of your life


Happy Birthday Dad.

Family.

Uncle Scott, Aunty Joce and Caitlin.

So the Dyers have gone back to the states, as i write this they have begun their long journey home.......

Random

Random shots taken during a rough week. All these pictures make me smile.

Joo Chiat-Katong

Joo Chiat and Katong, for Singaporeans these two places generally evoke thoughts on food especially the delectable delights concocted by the people known as Peranakan(bibiks and baba's , straits born chinese or Nonyas) . (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peranakan wiki knows all). I am sure in this very politically correct time in which we all live it is stereotypical to assume that all nonyas can cook just as it is to assume all french smoke and that every lady you meet in changi village at night is really a man. Alas times may change but our thoughts seem to stay the same, when i tell people i work very near katong the first thing they say is "wah so much good food" The problem is there really isn't that much of a variety, the difference between katong and say a food court is that in katong what little variety there is, is generally good. What i like about katong and joo chiat is the architecture plain and simple. I might add that while the buildings are often simple there are almost never plain.

The first picture i posted shows a row of beautiful buildings, all the buildings i am posting today are circa the 1920's maybe even a little later. The attention to detail and design is very impressive and while the Zen or minimalist style may be vogue around the world in katong Minimalism comes with a hefty dose of style, Nonya style.(click on the second pic for a closer look at the kind of detail i am talking about) Note the colonial style flower motifs and wreaths in white and the hand painted flowers on the tiles.

Most of the buildings were constructed as shop houses, with the downstairs being given over to business and the upstairs designated as the domicile or residence. One interesting thing to note is that most of these buildings are narrow and long, so floor space may be large but width small, i often wonder if this is too keep the prime frontage space use to a minimum so as to squeeze as many shop fronts as possible. Also lighting is very poor on the inside with very little natural light permeating into the middle of the buildings.

Just looking at third picture with the large ornate balcony shows that some measure of thought went into designing the living area. I don't have any pictures but traditionally the upper floors had a high ceiling to keep the place cool below its pitched roof.

Some buildings(very few and i suspect from a slightly later era) look squat and tough with very little deco about them and above is one of them. Looks like it was designed by an army engineer all substance and no song.(a rare example of a plain building)

The front entrance of two nicely restored buildings. The one on the right with the swing doors opens up almost immediately onto a public path. The one on the right has a small area, like a front porch.

These two are a pair of my favourites, the one on the right has a small enclosed space while the one on the left shows a typical shop house style building. I must add that sometimes the shop house was used totally as a residence and the front door would open into the family living room.

I really like this picture(left). Its the view through a back door of a soon to be restored shop house, and it shows the typical space saving spiral staircase. Nice to look at but i wouldn't want to be the fireman that had to hurry up or down those steps.

Finally i leave you with the second floor windows.


SIDEBAR-I have posted on the area before. Also if you click on the pics they will open a larger version. All pics have been resized downwards. IF you as i am sure you will be able to, find any typos do not hesitate and let me stress this point do not hesitate to keep it to yourself. I also tried to wrap the words around the pictures but cant seem to recall how i did it before.
WIKI INFO- Joo chiat is named after some dude named joo chiat(heh) and Katong is actually a a species of extinct turtle. It has other meanings for those go to wikipedia and find out.