.. . .. .. .. .

trailing dots,.. there is just something mysterious abt them. i do not know how to explain it. it leads the imagination to wander and wonder. simply putting one dot after another… makes it more personal, make it more interesting, makes it more exciting…

haiz.. i rly must be gg crazy. talking to myself this way.

Surprisingly, it took this long before I step foot in the US-A. With all the american/hollywood influence you’d think that I’ll be there the moment I got enuff dough.

My maiden flight to the state would be complimentary of uncle Wyeth on a business class SIA bird no less. Obviously I do look forward to it somewhat with another lifetime 1st in the form of whitewater rafting in West Virginia.

The trip is not without its drama, having almost not made it due to visa issue. Who’d thought a so-call global travel company to not mandate the citizenship information in their database. I knew about the trip like 2 months back and when the itinenary came, it states that I need no visa though I’m M’sian. It seems odd to me at the time and even requested for re-confirmation. However, the response came back the same. Thankfully, I realized the mistake when speaking to KC, thus immediately scrambled to get it done.

The experience at the American Embassy was another eye opener… those guys really take a over zealous approach to security. Good or bad is debatable depending on who you speak to. However, do not expect friendly customer service, that’s for sure. From that experience alone, I should expect a super long wait at the JFK airport trying to get past security.

Hopefully I get the time to put more in the blogs while I’m there… I wonder how much mileage I’ll get from the new canon EF20-200mm F2.8L IS lens that I just bought few weeks back??

Surprisingly, though being in the IT line, I’m rather behind in terms of the latest gadget and developments… This I discovered at the recent PC Show 2007 held in Suntec.
Got myself a SanDisk U3 portable storage… technology finally caught up to one of my wishlist. A stored application on the go! The exponential growth in storage has reached a scale where it is big enough to start putting little standalone apps into it. There this sync app that you can configure to backup your files, email and etc… neat! So you need not worry about not being able to open some of the files that you are backing up…

Another thing, a 4Gb drive is now less than SGD $60 - I still remember forking out $200++ for a bloody 1GB CF!!! Today you can get a 8GB CF for a little over $200. There’s also a huge range of blue tooth devices and media players… not to mention all those wireless and network attached devices… especially NAS types.

GPS system prices are also coming down fast… You can get one for less than 1k,… sign of old age I suppose.

Fixing up the long neglected photo album… update the gallery software to version 2.2.1 - realised that there’s been some broken links and correcting them is turning out to be a real challenge!!

Managed to put in place the watermark… can still be improve no doubt and good enough for now.
Restarted the scanning of old negatives, especially the 20+ rolls from vacation in the UK and Paris. Wonder how long the drive to finish can be maintained… since I’m putting in this much effort, might as well do a good job in the photo touch up in Photoshop.

Some year this has been ….

:: Q1 ::

Started with a forced change in career; moving out from a quiet and routine job with HP,.. reluctantly though. It was a semi-retirement stint which I would not have mind doing for a couple more years. Guess it was not meant to be.

The birth of WUF-C; my new DIY center speaker. A notable addition to my HT setup. Was a real challenge in the making, ambition got into my head saw me gunning for curve cabinetry, top of the line components costing well over 2k! All in all, it was worth it. There were some major boo boo, but it turned out well at the end. See the details here: http://av.rslweb.com/WUFC/

:: Q2 ::

Not surprising, in my financially challenged state travelling plans were put on hold. That gives lots of free time to progress with my diy project. Invested further in more professional hand tools. I sure can spent when it comes to things that I’m passionate about. The estimated time to completion then was abt Sep 2006….

Went down to Genting for a 2nd time; will be hitting the casino and looking forward to joyrides in the theme park… alas, the rides were nothing to shout abt since I’ve been to Disney Paris and Lotte World Seoul. The casino was a new experience - in fact it was a 1st. The last time I was there, I did not bother to enter… played the roullete most of the time, busted RM200; small change by most standards. The downside is the air - smoking is allowed!

On a job hunt: took me a much longer time to find a replacement than was previously . As the saying goes; good things comes to those who are patient. In my case, it was Wyeth. Scheduled to start work on 1st June.

:: Q3 ::

Back in the rat race in the form of a challenging and exciting post with Wyeth… this one proves to be another 1st, securing a full fledge managerial responsibilities (with the added perks ) Surprisingly I managed to maintain a balance btw work and personal time. It even allowed enough free time for me to complete WUF-C. But things are begining to ramp up as I assimilate into my new role.
Other development on the AV front, sold off the Krell and disconnect the rear speakers. Tweak the front xo futher to get a fuller mid-bass. This is a never ending pursuit,.. one that is getting taxing; am thinking of replacing these with the actual Sonus Faber Cremona - target 2007-2008;
:: Q4 ::

Lifestyle upgrade in the form of a Camry 24G, 2006/2007 model. Christmas comes early

Also, verbal confirmation in terms of my future with Wyeth; YES!! An offer that is almost impossible to refuse. Even if I do strike the Toto tommorrow, I’d probably stick around just for the experience. Then again, knowing my tendencies, maybe not. I’d probably dump a large % in the STI. ;D

*sigh* another two days before the black beau arrives…

I wonder how much live would be changed due to this?

couple of days ago, this website went missing!! As it turned out, it was due to the domain name expiry… thankfully, everything is back to normal now after forking out usd 17.

been a while since I put down in words passages in my life..

The World Cup 2006 just past in July. Got into the football mood early in June with bettings on the preliminary matches. Lost some $$ there only to start gaining back during the 1st round. Come 2nd round, the losing widens. Before I knew it, I’m down more than I have originally intended. So for the 1st time in history, I refrained from further betting from the semis on.

While we are on the subject of gambling, prior to the WC2006, I was in Genting Highlands and finally step into a casino for the 1st time. The last time I visited Genting it just didn’t interest me at all. I must say $$ gets wipe out pretty fast if you are not mindful and got carried away. However, as I was still unemployed at the time, I went easy with the bets. In my mind I said to myself to come back one day with a few $k to burn.
On 1st June, I started on my 6th job. This time round it’s a 6th month contract as a system engineer @ Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. It’s quite a distance to the factory but the company provides transport. It sure beats travelling to Chai Chee Techno-park in my previous job. These days I get home by 6pm, a luxury many cannot afford. I guess I’ve been pretty lucky ever since Unilever. That remains still the one to beat in terms of remunerations and benefits.

A brilliant development was my surprise “promotion” to the role of Data Center Lead. Unfortunately, it does not come with any $$ increment. Well, it is a more rewarding role in terms of job responsibilites and scope of work. It should reflect really well in my resume. The other plus point should it materialize is the conversion to a permanent position, upon which I would ‘demand’ a pay raise for the enlarge capacity and responsibilities. I should think long and hard if that does not come hand-in-hand.

Just completed watching 3 dvd over the weekend… one actually strike a cord in my heart. Title’s “HITCH” starring Will Smith and Eva Mendes.

Life is not about how much $ you make, how successful your career is and a whole lot of other crap…. it’s about who you are and how you make it worth your while. (more…)

Yep one of those days where I reinstall everything… typical of a XP system… tried to restore from the online image as of Dec 2004 - but seems like it got corrupted. Didn’t realised that I’ve been rather slacking in performing regular image backup.

The file corruption is getting to be a worry as I suspect this is due to the problematic boot-up failures. The constant hard resetting of the sys is the likely culprit.

Anyway, the boot-up success rate is much much better now,…