It has been a while

It has been a while since my last post. I know, I know that I tried to make it a point to update and tell my side of the story as frequent as I can, but shit happens.

I am required to go for a business trip in the southern region tomorrow for 2 days. I just got the agenda, the portion that I am suppose to look at is only for an hour or so on the first day. I mean thats it? spend the unnecessary traveling for hours, which I think air flight is not possible due to two reasons; first its gonna be hard to get flight tickets due to school holidays and second, the MD is not around to approve for air travel (ouch!)

So I am trying my very best to wiggle my way out of going.



So now is the school holidays, I am still tied up with my project which is one week behind schedule from my original plan. However, the actual completion date in stages and the first milestone is actually end of this month, so in a way I am still ok.

So to not let the kids disappointed by not going anywhere for the holidays, I took the whole family for another movie last weekend - "Rattatouille" (did I spell that right?). I guess they kinda enjoyed it, I liked it, my AF1 liked it, my AF2 said she liked it, my Af3 said heliked it, but he did looked bored on occasions, and Mama said she sorta liked it.

So it was fun, they did enjoyed themselves, which was the whole idea anyway. Munching away on popcorns and the movie did evoke laughter from all of them....


My AF3 has a defense mechanism on getting himself out of school. The last week before the school holidays he was very reluctant to go to school. Angin dia masa mula mula sekolah datang balik. He cried and tried to get out from getting me to send him didnt work, so when he got to school, he got himself to throw up so that the teacher would call me up to pick him up and take him home. That worked for the first day (monday) then he didnt go to school on tuesday & wednesday.

On thursday I forced him to go to school. He threw up in the car (fortunately in a plastic bag) but I still refuse to budge nor did I show any sympathy (it was hard but I had to do it... I felt really bad). He didnt vommit in school that day. And the thing was repeated again on Friday, and he was finally ok by the time he got home. Now with one week holiday, I dont know whether he will be worked up again on the first day of school.

So now, my head is in a mess about the traveling issue (the first paragraph of this post). Therefore I leave this post as it is now, and maybe just maybe I will get in some updates later

Wise words perhaps?

Here is something that I read recently that may be applies to nearly everything in life

You would have three things in most solutions in life, whether it is work related or in everyday life

Good, Quick, Cheap

And in most cases you can have only two of these components, no matter what.

Good + Quick solution = Not Cheap
Good + Cheap solution = Not Quick
Quick + cheap solution = Not Good


How does that sounds? Take a pick of what you usually choose




On another note here is a riddle told to me by my 8 year old AF2

If
Farmer A sells vegetables
Farmer B sells fruits
What does Farmer C sells?

It had me thinking.....I said a lot of things and she would laugh at me each time saying I am wrong...


The answer.. Farmer C (pronounced - Pharmacy) sells medicine!



That sure puts a smile on my face...

Futsal with a view and other thots

Last night was my futsal outing with the guys from the office. Well put it this way, the rest of the guys are young.. in their 20s, me and and YBA are touching 40.. sigh.

Anyway, one of the guys arranged a friendly with a team from TV3 (kononnya). It turns out that these guys are training for the upcoming National futsal league this weekend. Ulp! what have we got ourselves into.

Eventually it didnt turn out too bad. We didnt make a fool out of ourselves. Lost 2 matches and drew the other. Score... cant remember.

However, the view for that night is there was a filming going on at that venue... a taping of the tv series Gol & Gincu episode was taking place. So all the main actresses were there. So it was a nice sight indeed.

At home, my AF3 was still in transformers mode. Keep on repeating watching the transformers dvd, just like what he did when 'Cars' came out. The other day when we were in Subang Parade, he saw 'Cars' watch on display, he came to me with his cute eyes....

"Babah... boleh bili jam cars?'

This boy is four years old, cant even tell time, has two watches at home (one is a free faber castell digital watch, the other is a spiderman watch). So me being me, try to divert as much attention away from the topic until at one point..

'Babah.. naik atas pigi toysus' (Toy r us)

'ok nanti kita pergi' I happily replied, knowing if he goes to Toys r us he'll happily browse around, watch the promo on the tv sets until he is satisfied then we can leave peacefully. He is such a darling that he doesnt throw a tantrum.

Selamat duit babah



On another another note, I was at the Shah Alam pasar tani (the one located near the stadium) last sunday. As usual I would browse through the stalls carrying sports apparels. One particular stalls with footbal jersey replicas had the latest Arsenal 07/08 away strip. It was so much like the original. With the printed small print on the strip, the herbert chapman commemorative logo on the inside, with the quality of material... it was like wow? the price? RM40


Then I went to nike shop when I was in subang parade, there it was on display the same replica strip. The sales assistant came up to me started his sales pitch..

"bang, latest Arsenal jersey, tulisan tu semua pakai laser technology"

'yeah.... how much?'

"RM 250 jer...."

'ok... thank you'...

I check the quality, it was like very very very similar. I think only if I worked for Nike that I would know the difference. I am not advocating piracy or anything, but for that price?

Enuff Said.


Final thoughts of the day..... Welcome back my Treo 680. He ehe

New Car?

Yesterday, as I was dropping off my 4 year old AF3 to kindergarten, I parked the car. As I opened the rear door for him, I noticed there were some tears on the rubber lining of that door near the seat. I just mentioned to myself, "Oh Boy koyak pulak getah ni..."

And guess what the response I got from that boy?

"Koyak.... Abah, bili kereta baru la..." Banyak kereta cantik... tu tu " pointing to the other cars parked at the parking lot (among others a kancil, kelisa, getz and a proton)

I just smiled not knowing what else to say..... speechless....

Solat....

Entah macammana sebaik saja selepas solat maghrib two days ago, tiba tiba terlintas dihati, nak suruh my two precious girls AF1 & AF2 start solat on a regular basis. So I called them up, had a nice talk with them (with me doing all the talking actually) The two were initially worried, coz usualy if I called both of them and sit down and talked to them, usually they had done something wrong. But they were very receptive to my instruction and they were ready to do as I have asked. It was very heartwarming to see them eager and willing to perform the solat without me having to throw a fit. All I need is just to remind them (or maybe sometimes their mama or bak ti) of the prayer times.

So far Alhamdullillah, evrything is going well... no tantrums thrown when it is Solat time.

Whats going on?

Exactly. Whats going on in this world? As I was driving to work this morning, I was listening to HotFM, this was this caller, who said that she knew a female friend of hers in college (or was it a local U) who was humiliated by her boyfriend. The female friend was having a discussion about their coursework with colleagues (male amongst them) and he became jealous and he came over and spit on the poor girl. What's up with that? Man I tell you you are bringing shame to the whole of the male species. How could one treat another person especially a female with that? It is a deplorable behavior.
What has the world come to?

Buang anak dlm tong sampah, wife abuse, where have the feeling of compassion and responsibility gone to?

All I can do to change this is to raise my kids so that they will grow up with principle, dignity, responsibility, accountability, compassion, berilmu, berakhlak and fear of God.


On another note.. the Putrajaya hunt. we failed ... we did well on the hunt proper.. we failed on the missions. the 3rd mission it was all or nothing 0 pts or 10 pts..... guess what... we got nothing. there goes any hope of any decent top 20 placing.

Probably next year we might skip Putrajaya hunt... too many missions


time to go back to work....

A frantic weekend

I have been too tired to write anything. Been really busy managing my project. But I just wanna write how my weekend went, just for me to remember what went on last weekend. Here goes:


Saturday

Wet Market day. Dropped of AF1 for her tekwando class. Shoot of to Pasar Borong Selangor. Equipped with my trusty trolley off I went. Lets see what I got...

5 kg of ikan sardin
5 kg of ikan pelaling
2 ekor terubuk
1 kg udang
3 ekor nyok-nyok
2 ekor tenggiri
11 ekor cincaru
3 ekor ayam
1 kg daging
1 kg paru
2 kg tulang

Sayur - bayam, kangkong, pucuk paku & my favourite petai!!!!

Not bad for a couple of hours shopping. All in all for all the above I spent less than RM200 (which is my budget for the shopping every fortnight)

Rushed home to pick up everyone to go to Tok's place to put away all the things (Tok's place has a big freezer)Picked up AF1 on the way. Had a breather.. and there goes my morning.

Had lunch then brought the kids and Mama to Summit for "Tranformers" I had to go the previous night to get the tickets since
1. All the GSC phone booking lines are engaged... (for hours and hours)
2. Online reservation is down... cannot be accessible

The kids had a ball of a time... especially AF3 which was his first cinema movie experience.

The movie?.... AWESOME!!!!!

But get this... movie tickets RM 33... popcorns & drinks RM 16.. total RM 49..
I went to buy some pirated DVD (shhhh.. dont let the enforcement officers know about this....) I got 6 discs for RM 40...... sheesh no wonder the pirates are making a killing....

But all in all it was worth spending the money.... by the look on the faces of the three kids coming out from the movie theatre... it was like... priceless......they were smiling from ear to ear.

Finally... got home and was able to relax..... just parked myself in front of the TV watching Tiger Woods failing to make an impact.


Sunday...
You know why I was determined to bring the kids to the cinema? Coz today me and Mama are going Treasure Hunting... It was our first treasure hunt of 2007. We were on hiatus for nearly a year.

It was the Multiple Sclerosis Awareness hunt. We had a respectable finish...

for results see http://www.michaelpang.com.my/home/blog.php

It was tiring... yes it was. But at the same time rewarding especially when you get the answer. Treasure hunting is like a drug. The more answers you get the more you come back for it. Who in their right mind wakes up very early on a Sunday, just to torture themselves with hunt questions.... and then comes back for more.

Next week we are going for the Putrajaya hunt. So... see you guys there...

Evening... Giant time.. shopping for groceries... again!

I need to finish up some work now.... will continue when I have time......