Friday 6am.

If things go as planned on friday morning a young australian will hang for drug trafficking. His reasons, rationale whatever mean nothing at this point. All that matters is that state sanctioned murder will be carried out. I am not in favour of the death penalty, not by half. i used to be but no more. My reasons can be found in some of my earlier post.
Right now in this issue there is a question of Sovereignty.
It is the right of any governement to enact laws that it sees fit. In a republic such as ours where WE do not govern but elect the people who do, we sign away the right to govern at the ballot box. And for 4 or 5 years we live with the descion of the majority untill the next election.Our government has seen fit to continue with this form of punishment so we must live with it until the next election when we can choose to use our vote to make a difference. For people in other countries to sit there and say this not not how a first world nation should behave is laughable. By what divine right do they sit in judgement on our laws and our nation. In 46yrs we have hung more than 800 people, since 1979 the US has executed 999 people. First world, superpower, policeman of the world, and does its little sidekick Australia say we are following some barbarian nation around like a puppy dog? Hell no. John Howard put it in perspective when he said " i do not agree with the death penalty but it would be hard to expect the Singaporean government not to execute this man when they do it to their own people"
By preaching or talking down to us they ownly strengthen the reslove of the government to stick to its guns.
Maybe some day we will change the law, and maybe it was going to be now...but these guys have ruined it, havent they.
So on friday, spare a thought not for a guilty man who is no hero in this equation but for a mother as she lives the cruel death of her son.

HE IS COMING!!!

A couple of pics from our christmas tree. More to come....

Dawn...buloh

Woke up before the sun did this morning, met Mr.Machado at 0630 we had an early morning appointment wiht Sungei Buloh. Which i might add i have no idea how to get too, but we found it pretty quick...so quick that the place wasnt even open yet. I didnt even know they had opening times! A number of birds, today..egrets, herons, kingfishers, an emerald green pigeon(i think),an eagle, jungle fowl and even a woodpecker (and others)whose call it turns out is much like a kingfishers a wild screach not a pleasent sound at all. For reptiles we saw two monitor lizards, one big malayan water monitor and the other a mangrove monitor with the very nice spotted markings. Mammals, we saw a couple of squirels and lots of homo sapiens. No snakes, no crocs and NO OTTERS..sigh...one day i am going to get the shots i want of these 3 animals...one day. As you may notice i only put 3 pics up, either my photography skills are going backwards or my selection process is getting more rigid i dont really know but i was most unhappy with what i took today. A nice morning, enjoy the weekend.

Gone fishin'

So we went fishing today(this evening actually), the lads and i...another one of our little adventures. First we took a nice stroll along the boardwalk (changi) and enjoyed a firey red sky, i took tons of pics but alas satisfaction was denied me. Back to the fishing, i have been doing this a long and time and in all my years i have never ever caught a fish. Not one. But then the objective has never been to catch the fish , in the early days that was our excuse...people would say so you guys just went to the beach and sat there? and we would reply no la we went fishing. Nice to know some things dont fade with time. Since i have never caught anything i am never disappointed. Just two pics today, and not much to write..why? cause i'v gone fishin...........



sidebar-the sky u understand..but whats the connection with the mushroom? none whatsoever...just like mushrooms.
I was going the change the song to Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosbys Gone Fishin a fun song, but for some reason U2 makes sense ..more sense. alls well with the world tonight.

Extra's.....lifes little moments

So i got an email yesterday, on things from the past an excerpt below
You were there when they first introduced MRT
here. You went for the first ride with your parents
and you would kneel on the seat to see the scenery.
Movie tickets used to cost only $3.50.
Gals are fascinated by Strawberry Short Cake and
Barbie Dolls.
You learn to laugh like The Count in Sesame
Street.
You longed to buy tibits called Kaka(20 cents
per pack) and Ding Dang(50 cents per box), that had
a toy in it and it changes every week not forgetting
the 15 cents animal crackers and the ring pop, where
the lollipop is the diamond on the ring.
Anyway this whole thing leads me to my morning bus ride to work, yes thats right bus ride. I decided to cheat the bus company out of 40cents today, actually i try and cheat them everyday but today the bus driver gave me a knowing smile and i thought to myself "HE KNOWS" anyway it was too late the 90cents was in the box there wasnt time to get another 40cents in there so i just shrugged and walked down towards the end of the bus, where to my horror stood a bus inspector!!! I dashed into the first empty seat and was about to use the only bus cheaters defensive mechanism, pretending to be fast asleep when i heard a voice, "how are you?" it was the inspector!!! and when i turned to see his face low and behold it was William..William the coffee shop man who used to run the coffee shop in front of church. I have known him since i was 16yrs old, that my friends was 16yrs ago! Not all of it was pleasent, he used to serve the worst coffee and often tried to overcharge us for drinks but it seems time heals all wounds. In the end we had a 20min chat (he never asked to see my ticket), his father passed away at the ripe old age of 87 he was a funny guy used to tell us he was a basketball player back in china.the old man was never the same after his wife died. We talked about the old stalls, the wan tan mee man..shangrilla western food where i spent most of my parents money, the seafood people (one of the guys who worked there looked like pol pot so we called him that, he would smile and laugh..but i bet he spat in our food!) He talked about how we would be there from friday night till sunday night drinking and eating our little lives away, i noticed that as he spoke he had a twinkle in his eye much like when he knew he was cheating us out of 10cents, i guess they were happy times for him too Lots of things have changed since then, i am at the same age that alot of the adults(who hung out at the coffeeshop) were when i was 16, it seems i hear kids calling me uncle alot more and the scary thing is i am arguing about it less and less. When i told him i was married and expecting my fisrt child Willaim.practically leapt out of his seat with congratulations.
Like the shop man under my mums block, or the provision shop dude across the road from my mums house or the neighbour that you pass along the way and say "hi hows your mother" too everyday, these people are like the extra's in the coffee shop in friends, they give the place charactor, they give the place atmosphere. Myabe our lives would be no better no worse for knowing them i dunno..but i suspect that as with everything extra's are always a good thing.

The Big News

Yes thats right folks the bigs news....Mischa aka TLOML and I are expecting our first child! Due to arrive somewhere in June 2006. We are both very very excited at the same time as being cautious, any frist time parents would be. Its been difficult keeping this momentus news quiet, and the cat is out of the bag now. I will be posting some pics on this topic soon.
We have been going to the doctors and at our last visit, the little un was kicking and waving at us!! it was prob the most exciting moment in my life. I felt like jumping in the air, but i figured our gynie Dr.Seng didnt deserve such torture. So come June 06 i will be a daddy. Pray for us that all will go well, as i am sure it will but pray for us none the less. :). Boy or girl at this point doesnt really matter as long as the "fella" is happy and healthy. So after being married for two years we are now in the next phase of our journey, expanding our little family of 3 to 4. Problems i am sure we will have many, but with family and friends i feel confident that we can cope with anything.



Mischa has a blog now as can be seen on the right hand side of this page. so please feel free to drop in there as well.

Members of the Jost Clan

I got some pics from my sister in minnesota, usa. THey have got a couple of shih tzu too! that brings thier family up to 5. The kids have grown so much since the last time they were here and that wasnt all that long ago. We have been chatting on msn, its amazing how small the world has become. I remember when i was young my dad would call the operator to place an overseas call and the operator would call us back after an hour or so to connect the call. And now here we are with msn, sms, email within the blink of a sloths eye we are talkign and exchanging pics, whats next....(all pictures were taken by the Jost, all typos are mine)

Boys day out

Any typos should be written down and sent to the Archbishop of roam. All pics have been cropped and shrunk. please let me know if you want a full size pic.

The Machado Males.

So we went to the zoo today, the Machado males wanted to do something and came up with the idea of going to pulau ubin, alas it seemed the rain had other plans. So plan A was washed away we moved to plan B..the zoo always a family favourite. So from work (got picked up by them)we went on our merry way. The weather was perfect for a nice walk, overcast with the scent of rain but not a drop fell on us. Ok lets get organized!

For lunch we had, Naan and taco chips a lovely combination.

Philip and and elephant skull!























I think Michael found his tribe...
The poor fella fell down 3 or 4 times today, running all over the place. I am sure he will have a good night sleep tonight!

CRIKEY! Who's got who??











The purpose of this picture was to show the size of the lily pads behind the boys, i am sure that Michael could have sat on one of them.

At the zoo...

The skull of the elephant was the second thing i saw for the first time at the zoo, along with the feeding snake which was the first.
I wish i could post the full size pictures, alas life isnt fair.
I had to add the little insects(albeit a lousy pic) in the series, musnt forget the little uns i always say. I was also trying to take shots in black and white today, so i was switching from black and white to colour all day.


The snakes were really active today with the green tree pythons slithering around as well as the burmese python eating a big white rat, i was riveted as it crushed the rodent then swallowed it whole.


Some tiny puppy pepper sized primates(names to be posted later) The cotton mouth from the states is bit blur cause i got it behind glass. The landrover defender was parked as part of an exhibit in the zoo..may fav car..sigh
(as i type this pepper is sighing cause i told her to get to bed)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SERENA!

Buildings...

This pic is of the same buildign as the ones below,
This single window really made me curious as to what was inside. Rapunzel..rapunzel let down your hair.
Location TANK ROAD-Next to Sacred Heart Church. The tiles are from clarke quay, some resturant there..nice i thought




The pic of the shelter is at clarke quay, its a whole lot better that what they did to the facade. I still dont understand which idiot approved that.
The hindhu temple also at tank road

I like this building, pink windows on a grey background, someone was thingking straight here, a sense of fun and whimsy but no to garish and it doesnt distract from what is a fine old building.


This door leads from Sacred Heart chruch to a row of old buildings. From what i understand they are soon to be demolished. Below you can see the front and in rear of these buildings.
Tank Road.
Located at clarke quay next to the pink window building is a PINK building, it used to be people painted these old buildings yellow or blue but i reckon pink is the in thing now.


Chooks on car. U need to double click on it to see whats going on.
Clarke Quay Green Building..next to another green building...
Central Fire Station. when i was young my father used to build lego houses and buildigns for our train set and this building looks like soemthing he would have built.
The old buildign is at Tank road, its the front of the window and door pic


And this is the back.






One of the things i want do is try and get into capitol theatre(any contacts?) and take some pics...saw many great movies here and i will always remember stopping in front for a milkshake.

Flowers n leaves...and buildings lol

I took this picture but the poem is by an obscure dude from Chicago.

I like this picture except for the sunspot. I would have had this printed if not for that.

i edited these two using paintshop pro..