seventh heaven not

diane suggested checking out this new ice-cream parlour at 10 raeburn park. that's where my secondary school used to be.

due to a mis-com over sms with diane, i had not ask janet or doris along last night. had lunch with diane and jarad at coffee club at tiong bahru plaza. doris joined us too since she happened to be in town having lunch with thomas. janet and jeff couldn't make it at such late notice.

jarad is still mostly shy and not very vocal yet. the only thing that could get him excited is ice-cream! and that's the only word that i hear him say out loud.

but alas, seventh heaven was not meant to be. it's closed till 29th. :(

but i took the opportunity to show diane and doris around my old school compound. racking my brains trying to remember what used to be where. somehow, the place feels so much smaller than what i remember.

but our mission for ice-cream is still not accomplished so off we went to ben & jerry's at great world to satisfy jarad's need for ice-cream.

thanks, diane for the cool treat. :)

dinner @ 183

it's our traditional jcgang christmas eve dinner. something which we had going for at least 5 years but we still can't pinpoint exactly when it all started. maybe we're getting old. :P since the little ones have so much fun each year, i think it's something they very much look forward to each christmas.

we have settled into a routine on who gets what for the potluck dinner over the years. janet will get the basics like the staples and drinks. this year, jason and her had outdone themselves by making curry chicken, jelly and tiramisu! wow...

lynn has become the expert on mushrooms with herbs. she made something new this year, baked scallops with mayonnaise and cheese which everybody loved. the nigella fan had also made a very yummy spiced peach. delicious!

johann and diane are the de-facto providers of baked ham. and i'm the go-to person for salads. i tried my hand at making a roasted vegetables with salad greens. roasted yam, japanese sweet potatoes, pumpkin, baby carrots, baby corn, egg plants and capsicum. had lots of leftovers so i guess it's not well-received. :(

doris is the supplier of the highlight of the dinner - the christmas log cake. tracy and eric skipped our less than healthful dinner this year because of eric's current diet restrictions. siew leng and jeff also joined us after dinner.



the decibel levels has definitely gone up over the years as doris had remarked. i guess that's expected as the little ones become good friends and develop greater lung powers. from what i know, johann's and john's family are going to tokyo disneyland because janine and janelle said so.

amidst the festivities, more good news were announced... janet is pregnant! cayden is going to be big brother soon. guess whether he prefers to have a baby brother or sister?

and his answer is a sister! surprised? janet says that's because he doesn't want to share his clothes and toys with a younger brother. :) haha...

another good news of sorts came from me, i'm now gainfully employed since the 9th. that means i can't wake up whatever time i want or have late night online gaming sessions anymore. but adjusting to a working routine wasn't difficult, think i had enough rest and relaxation already. ;)

cheers!

dinner @ the pines

it's the office christmas dinner at the pine garden chinese restaurant. haven't been there since sl & jeff's rom eons ago.

the food was ok, an 8-course menu like having wedding dinner except there's no abalone. :P haha...

it was the ride there on the boss's beemer that's exciting. he was speeding and switching lanes like a race driver. kind of impatient driver i suppose. but what's the point of arriving on time?

we had to wait for more than 1 hour for those in pearlyn's car. duh...

seeni

seeni, one of our pre-sales guy is finally back in the office this week. he had been on a long vacation followed by kl for work so i didn't really get to know him since i started work here.

but today, we had to go down to the warehouse together... that usually means hq had screwed up. :P

so it was a chance to get to know each other on the way there and back. while waiting for effendy to escort us into the warehouse, seeni asked me how old i am. i made him guess.

and his guess was '25? 26?'. i really didn't know how to react. either he is being extremely glib or terribly lousy at guessing people's age.

when i showed him my temporary pass and told him that i'm already 36, the look of astonishment on his face was priceless. he just couldn't believe it. haha...

guess i must buy him a drink for making my day. :)

keppel distripark

sk needs to go down to our bonded warehouse at kd to sort out some issues with the items that hq had sent. she had asked bl and me along. for me, it's primarily to introduce me to the warehouse guys.

it's my first time in a bonded warehouse. didn't know quite what to expect...

first, got to register and pay to enter the distripark. that is in addition to our vendor sending our names and nric numbers to the counter for prior clearance. it costs $3.21 and i was given a temporary pass with my details and digital photo printed on it. they even put your age in brackets behind your name.

then we had to wait for shekar to escort us into the warehouse area just a short walk away. sk had already warned that the warehouse is rather warm and stuffy at times.

this is unlike my previous company's warehouse which is air-conditioned. the equipment here apparently is hardy enough to be stored in a regular warehouse. the scale of the warehouse operations is really much smaller than what i'm used to.

but some items are really huge though... especially the 10-foot antenna dish. sk called it the ufo. hehe...

amara sanctuary

kenneth's friend got a room at the resort and was lucky enough to be upgraded to a villa so i tagged along for a look-see.

it's gorgeous and a miniature of the banyan tree villa that i had toured in bintan some years back. both the room and living area flank the pool cum jacuzzi. the shower and bathtub are all outdoors, obviously designed for couples or honeymooners.

check out my pictures here.

1st day

was told to report to work at 9:30 am today so i took my time and had breakfast at home.

ian had sms-ed to say it's ok to wear polo-tee and jeans today since i might be required to do some stock take. found out that jeans are ok only for fridays, when visiting the warehouse or when the #1 and #2 bosses are not around. :P

dresscode is pretty much the same as my last job but fridays are much more casual since jeans and tees are allowed. nice!

office is very small [less than 20 staff] and very open concept, even more so than my previous company. so open that conversations on the phone isn't private at all since the cubicles are smaller and partitions are lower.

and because my laptop isn't ready, there isn't much that i can do in the office today except read and filling out some forms. :)

1st half marathon

slept late last night, woke up at about 5:00am to stuff myself with soya bean milk, cereal and banana to prepare for the half marathon at 6:30am... all the while keeping as quiet as possible so as not to disturb the sleeping ph and sl.

walked over to the start point in 5 minutes... am so glad that i stayed over at swissotel. :) if i had taken the shuttle bus, i would have to be at the clementi stadium at 5:00am! gosh!

i'm so not prepared to run the half marathon but what the heck? can always walk whenever i want to. i only aim to complete the 21km, not run the complete distance. ;)

the first half was still bearable, i wasn't running fast but just a really slow jog with stops at all the drinks station plus a toilet break.

then the muscle near-cramps started after the half way mark. first on my left quadriceps then on my right, followed by both my calf muscles. had to make a beeline for the deep heat rub stations and 'whiten' my thighs with the ointment.

from then on, i had to stop periodically to stretch and massage my legs so as to prevent them from having a full-on cramp. so i would run for a few minutes, stretch and walk for a long time until i'm ready to run again and the cycle repeats itself. at the last 2km, even my toes threaten to cramp up.

needless to say, i didn't meet my target of 2:30 for the half marathon. it was a disappointing 3:07:43 and my results were embarassing to say the least. of the 9090 who completed the half marathon, 32% were female and i was only ahead of 31% of them.

Average km is a crawling 8 minutes and 54 seconds and average speed is 6.7km/h.

7127th place in the entire field with 1963 finishers behind and about 78% of finishers ahead.

5112th place in the male category with 1051 finishers behind and about 83% of finishers ahead.

948th place in my age category [35 to 39] with 137 finishers behind and about 87% of finishers ahead.

just for comparison, the male winner of the half marathon completed the run in 1:08:02. that is less than half the time i took. if he can run at this constant speed, he could have ran 3 x half marathons in the time i take to complete 1!

what's worse? my ipod nike+ recorded a longer distance than 21km! argghhh....

dinner @ vienna

went down to meet sl & janet & family. they had already checked into the rooms at swissotel. yeah, we're all very serious with our standard chartered runs. hehe... ;)

after dropping off my bags in the room, i joined my folks at vienna at united square for buffet dinner to celebrate my dad's birthday. jan and wilson were rather late. somehow, estee and myself find the buffet spread kind of disappointing. i think we're getting tired of this place.

i did my carbo-loading by eating the sushi, maki and steamed savoury rice in bamboo. the maguro wasn't good tonight. had sake and tako sashimi and 5 oysters. estee complained that the oysters were not fat and big.

i also had a few servings of 芋泥 and cakes, all fuelled up for my half marathon tomorrow. :)

christmas cards

managed to get on with my christmas card project in the morning. did some embossed stamping. i like the silver embossing lots, think it's real nice. :) but my christmas stamp is breaking down, the sponge support has dried up and falling off in bits and pieces. :(

btw, if you receive a christmas card from me in the mail box, you're one of the lucky 22 on my very exclusive christmas mailing list featuring 1 of a kind handmade cards from yours truly. i wouldn't mind if you frame it up and tell your grandchildren about it. :P

dinner @ waraku

met up with amy & ml for dinner at marina square to celebrate amy getting wiser. :) however, getting wiser doesn't mean being more punctual leh. :P

went shopping for creative speakers and a 'little miss' tee for her when she finally turned up. saw a set of creative t3 speakers that were real cool... sounds great too, to my non-audiophile ears. we bought her miss bossy. thought it's fun... and also to amuse her staff when she wears it to work. haha...

after that, we went to queue for a table at waraku. while waiting for one, somebody behind the glass partition waved wildly at us... then i realised it was ph who got her friend's help to get my attention. she's back from beijing for her brother's wedding and to run the standard chartered 10km.

dinner was fulfilling to say the least. amy and i took the opportunity to do our carbo-loading for sunday's run. i had a negri-toro don and shared a salad and maki roll with the ladies. plus i helped myself to ml's tonkatsu as well.

we were so full that we skipped desserts and drinks. :)

race pack

went expo to collect my race pack for the standard chartered marathon this afternoon. thankfully, it wasn't crowded at all unlike what sl had experienced last night. i collected my bag within 15 mins.

even had some time to go to the john little sale next door to pick up some christmas presents for the little ones. yeah! i'm done with the kids' presents for christmas. :)