Heat WAVE

It’s a freaking HEAT WAVE ……. ooohhh man the haze is back and I think it is just trapping all the heat !!!!

Island Wedding

Well not exactly, but I guess you can Sentosa an Island and if you are having a wedding there it’s an Island Wedding. Attended a wedding on Sentosa recently. It was a very nice event, small and quaint event. We had to go a little early as the missus was helping the bride out with some wedding coordination. We drove onto the island around 11am as it was a lunch time solemnisation and buffet reception. I was tasked to help out with the video recording for the day. But did managed to get some pictures in as well.

 

The ceremony started in this little area where the Justice of the Peace arrived and the wedding proper began. A very short ceremony and it just took about 15 minutes and it was over, the vows were taken, kiss the bride, exchange of rings sign the documents and before you know it we were done and some photo taking opportunities were there with the happy couple. Here they are George and Darma with the witnesses and Justice of the Peace.

The party proceeded to the reception in the ballroom for lunch. Some more pictures of the event and I love those wedding gift very nice.

 

There was the usual games and stuff the yum seng  was shouted out and of course there was the throwing of the bridal bouquet which had to have a retake as the first time no one caught it. Around 4pm the final thank you’s were said and the guess started to take their leave.

A couple of more shots of the happy couple.

 

 

And through it all was the missus who was task with being the ‘Captain’ of the bride for the day. Good Job sweetie :)

 

On a side note, if you ever visit Rarotonga there is an island on that island (does that sound right) where you can actually hold a wedding. It’s about I think 50 to 100 m in length and you take a small boat over (or you can walk over if you like, in your tux !!) It’s just a stones throw away from the main land. Many people actually go there to get married. That would really be an island wedding.

Its the Season

It's that time of year again where after the Chinese 7th month, it's safe to go back into the waters again and also to get married, there's a wedding this week and I have another next month to attend as well. All the love birds are up and about :)

Happy Birthday Bilbo

For all you Lord of the Ring’s fans, It’s Bilbo’s Birthday today 22nd September.

How Big is Big

As the missus is expecting now and her tummy is beginning to show, she did comment to me recently that previously when she got on board MRTs and Buses, no one would give her a seat, even when her tummy was just showing people probably did not notice but finally people are giving up her seats to her and from then on you know that it’s starting to show :)

Visit to the ENT

I’ve been having an enlarged tonsils since July and finally last month in late August I decided to have it checked out wanted to just check it out at a Government Hospital first but before I could even get to see the ENT (Ear Nose Throat) specialist, I had to get a referral from a Polyclinic, well I’ve got my referral done and 3 weeks later it was time to see the ENT guys at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

Got there at my appointed time and the wait started. About an hour later it was my turn to see the doctor. Got called in and the doctor asked a few questions about my tonsils. He did a look at it and then he also had to do a quick scope to see what was behind my throat. Not the best of experiences when you have a torchlight shoved up your nose, it feels like when you have too much wasabi. Everything seems clear doc told me it could still be left in there but the decision was up to me. I said it was time to get it out now as I have been having issues talking and sometimes when I eat it feels like I’m choking. The doc then went on to check on my sleeping patterns as it seems that could be affected and I may have to see the sleep centre if the problem was bad. As it turns out not an issue with that. There was a quick discussion with the senior doctor (I suppose that was him) where I overhear the them saying that the tonsil were big “4+” I assume the scale was a 5 point scale so I guess that would make it big. In the end the ok to get my tonsils removed was given. Next I had to get an appointment.

But before that I had to go settle some bills for the checkup. Well that scopey thingy actually cost extra (the doc did tell me) but the subsidise rate was manageable. So there was the wait for my name to be called for billing. After which another wait for the appointment.

A very nice elderly nurse was at the appointment station I think she was the friendliest of the lot. Once I got my name called met up with the nurse and after some debate on when was the earliest date. I just wanted to get it out as soon as possible, as it turns out the surgeon would be away and the earliest was a month from now but as it turns out there was a heavy schedule on his operating days (only on Mondays in this case) so in the end it would be on 9th Nov 2009 when my op was scheduled. I had to come in 2 weeks prior for some checkup with the anaesthetist. Actually the date that was given was pretty good as it would be after the REAL run and I should have recovered in time for the Marathon at the end of the year.

Dan Brown’s – The Lost Symbol

Well it’s not going to be a book review ha ha …… I actually pre-ordered this book from MPH, if I’m correct this is the first time that I ever pre-ordered something from MPH, it’s the follow up to the Da Vinci Code. Anyways I just collected it and being a pre-order it cost me $12 less and I got a mug to go with it as well as a MPH $5 voucher. I did not know the book was a hard cover, probably should read the fine print on the pre-order form next time, but the nice people at MPH actually called me up once the book was ready for my collection. There were 2 covers which you could choose from I took this one. Got to start reading this after I finish my comics.

 

Nice SBS Bus Driver

I was off to take my daily bus to work today and encountered a rather nice Bus Driver, not many of these you see on the road these days. I had to cross the road to get to the bus stop and as traffic was heavy I got caught on the centre Island, as I was waiting there, a bus pulled in (it’s not my bus) passengers got on and as he pull out he tooted at me and asked if I was taking his bus, mind you I was still on the centre divider trying to get across. I shook my head and told him to carry on, now that’s a nice bus diver or bus captains as there are known now I believe. You don’t see many of these around. WELL DONE.

Size Does Matter :)

This year's Nike run was open for registration recently. Although I was not the first, I did try to register within a week of the registration opening. I went to the site add in all the information and I submitted the info and an error pops up !! It said my T-Shirt size (which was L) was not available. Now that was a surprise seems the organisers made the T-Shirts before people submitted their registration! Ok I thought lets try a different size, maybe XL, submit and boom same error message saying I coulf not register as there were no more sizes !! This is the first time I have ever encountered an event which already had printed the number of S, M, L, XL shirts before anyone registered. Or maybe they were just using the left overs from next year.

Yellow Ribbon Project

The Yellow Ribbon Project is in aid of ex-offenders to give them opportunity to integrate back into society. In aid of this which I have supported over the years, I got my yellow ribbon which I have tagged to my bag.

 

The Prison service also had their very first inaugural Yellow Ribbon Prison Run held on 6th September 2009. I signed up for the 10km run (there was another 5.8km run category) The start point was a little strange as you did not start and end at the same place. We could park at the Singapore Expo and they had shuttle busses to take all the runners to the start point where you could deposit your bag (they had trucks to ferry your bag to the end point) but I think there was some chaos at the end point with the baggage collection.

Some highlights of the run were the unique scenery, and the slopping terrain, it almost rained (or actually it did at the end) and the wind was gusty which made running a little hard. They had this novel idea to have a “cool zone” it’s actually a 10m stretch where you could run under a mist machine. It was quite refreshing and unique but I think those ipod users gave it a pass. At the end we collected our goodie bags which contain among other things the 1 isotonic can drink, water was only provided at the end, toilets were not many. Oh I forgot to mention the end point was at Changi Prison !! I guess the only time you would ever get to be in a prison, it was really an eye opening place the huge field where I suppose on any given day inmates would be allowed to roam around. They had a mock up of a prison cell as well and the inmates baked muffins which were given out. Props to Anderson’s ice-cream one of the sponsors which gave out free ice-cream yummmy …. the ice milo was cool as well extra yummy …. I remembered drinking ice milo in primary school during sports day, that was probably the last time I had ice milo.

The PAC (Prison Action Committee – I think that’s what it’s called) provided entertainment at the end with a band and quite good signing from the inmates, all shaven head and wearing smart looking white T-Shirts. The band was pretty good, the crow loved them and I think they were very happy to be able to perform for us.

Well instead of a finisher’s medal they gave us a plague (or paper weight if you wan to call it) an interesting memento of the event.

Expenses

Well last month wanted to track my finances and after a month I got a rough estimate of what percentage I spent on stuff. The top highest expenses were on spending on the babies which were coming soon. Loans which included car loans and other items and transportation. These 3 came up to about 60% of total monthly expenditure. The only thing unusually would be the baby stuff.

 

I spent about 10% on food and my hobbies took up about 5% of total expenditure. the rest were on periodicals (I tend to like to read), religion (some extra given to the church this round), personal stuff, lottery and entertainment. It was an interesting excercise and I am going to keep it up for 1 more month and see how it goes.