Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Benji versus the shaver

Yes. Its that time of the year again, long evenings sipping lemonade at the yard, hailing the ice-cream van by the park for $1.50 popsicles, and of course, when Benj has to get his hair cut... Nothing more invigorating as a Sunday afternoon chasing our Benji around with a shaver!. As with all haircutting sessions with Benj, he almost always has a sixth sense for deception on our part. Be it our sneaky tone of voice... "Come here boy...Come on here, we've got a present for you...."... or that shaver that we trying to hide (unsuccesfully) behind our bodies, trying to corral him while he tries to sneak himself underneath the nearest chair in sight.


Or, perhaps its the fact that any haircut involving 1 person holding you down, while the other tries to shave your crotch, inherently evokes some sense of concern on your part... Or just the day before, you had the neighborhood doggy-girls complementing your long locks of blond/gray hair... I hate to put words in Benj's mouth, but I really think any haircut that makes you look like a cross between a Gremlin and a teddy bear would be a cause for concern, as well as put a damper on your social life!

BTW, its 9:45pm and i'm still working too. So that puts a damper on our social life as well!!!

Friday, June 23, 2006

We left our ... Cash in Chinatown

We're back from San Francisco. I got back at 1am on early Tuesday morning, while Yeesin got back on Weds night... Ahh... back to the umm... Excitement of good old Kansas again! San Francisco is a GREAT place to visit, especially without the stress of renting a car and looking for parking... We stayed downtown around the Nob Hill area, just 3 blocks south of Chinatown, and 3 blocks North of Union Square (The place where we got highjacked by H&M, Gap, et al.). North Beach & Pier 39 is just a cable car ride away too!

Only downside? lots of walking if you don't want to wait for the cable car, or if the cable cars breakdown entirely!! (Yep. it happened twice when we were there)

For those that are curious, we didn't do too much damage to our checkbook shopping... Turns out H&M didn't have as many deals as we thought. Now just shopping / eating in Chinatown alone... thats another question! Remember the 2nd thing we did on our last post? Well, the first thing we did was walk to Penang Garden in Chinatown.... Now, that was MY moment of rapture, as I feasted on a delicious bowl of Fish-Head-Noodles... Hmmmm.... In the following next couple of days, we'd return back to this place again and again to eat more Malaysian stuff... In general, not exactly authentic... but we can't complain!

Ahh... The fresh smell of stinking garbage in the morning!! You know, that fishy smell, mixed with old-newspaper!!?? Yep, Chinatown on Sunday Mornings smells just like the local pasar-pagi back in Malaysia!! The crowd too! Nothing like a sea of people everywhere you look! Woe is the hapless driver who tries to navigate Chinatown on the weekends! Our Sunday Chinatown excursion started with a Really Affordable Dim Sum with Yeesin's Uncle and Family (Barely 8 bucks a person!!) But I digress... The rest of our cash went fast enough... I bag of lychees, 2 boxes of loh-hon-kor, some asian placemats, the list goes on... Our cash was in the safe possesion of the cashiers at Chinatown.... ;)

BTW, Gordon and Lynda were also kind enough to hang out with us at the bar at the top of the hotel! They graciously came up to us even tho it was Sunday nite... A couple of drinks later, we then ajorned to the local late-night chinese diner for some porridge and ew-char-kuey! Unfortunately, I decided to order wan-tan-mee, which didn't really turn out the way that I expected. Nevertheless, I still had YS's porridge to eat, so I wasn't really complaining... Ahh... the memories of good chinese food!!! *Sigh* its back to the grind again....

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Second Thing To Do In San Francisco

So here we are in SF. We are spending the weekend here cos YS is here for a business trip. I just kepoh and joined her here for the weekend. Obviously we already hit the local malaysian restaurant.
The second ting to do is. . . Shop of course!

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

I do NOT direct traffic at the Grandview Triangle...

"So what do you do at your new job ah?"... "Well, I'm a Traffic Supervisor" *Silence* "So, is that like anything to do with directing traffic at the intersections so that we get to work on time?" *Sarcastically* "Yep! They gave me a White half-shell helmet, and a pair of white gloves on my first day! ; Then they asked me to get on this little scooter...."
So, no. My new job does not, and probably will never involve physically directing automobile traffic either at the Grandview Triangle, or at the Mur-len & 147th St!

"So...what is it that you really do?", so people have asked me... Well, for the last 2 weeks at least, I have found being a supervisor in general involves LOTS and LOTs and LOTS of meetings! I've been to more meetings in the last 2 weeks than I have ever been to in the last 6 months! Yeah...and I have to start reminding people about admin stuff, like mandatory training etc. So, I think before long... I'll need to walk by with my coffee cup, and ask people about "coversheets"... BTW, Yeesin has FORBIDDEN me to wear two-toned shirts, the ones with the collar a different color than the rest of the shirt! "YEAH....I need you to go ahead and come in on Saturday....."

Seriously though, its a nice career change for me. Instead of only worrying about getting my own stuff done, I need to think about a group of people. Have to resist the urge to jump-in, and take care of it myself... Its a different way of getting things done, but it is waay busier than I expected. Definitely a LOT more paperwork than I expected too! Most of my time (outside of meetings) is spent documenting action-items, working on long-term stuff for the team as a whole, reporting...the list goes on. I'm beginning to appreciate how busy my ex-managers used to be... PLUS, I'm wondering if paperwork duties propagate upwards and increases in quantity as we go up in the management chain... Probably the only guy that doesn't do lots of paperwork is the guy on TOP of the org chart!!??

Sunday, June 11, 2006

The best free purchase ever...

Its 5 pm in the evening on another lazy Sunday. We just got back from Wal-mart where we got some nice Petunia's which Yeesin planted while I was working on some lawn chairs which we picked up from a Garage Sale last week.
It was the best "free" purchase ever; the chairs happened to match our existing lawn furniture, and they lean back far enough that we can just fall asleep if we close our eyes long enough...Except for the fact that the chairs were broken at the top-joint were the previous owners leaned a little too hard on it. So I took it upon myself to rectify the situation with a little hardware from my trusty old toolbox. 2 little nuts and bolts later...
A little ghetto, but we DO live on the "other" side of I-35... so maybe its appropriate.... Hey... thats what happens when its a slow weekend for us !!!

Friday, June 02, 2006

Moving On...

My boxes are packed,my old cube is cleaned,and i have said my goodbyes.on monday i will be starting my new job at another part of the company...i let myself leave work early today...doubt anything can
get done with all these boxes in the way!