1st cycling race of the year

Today was one hectic day. Started the day at some unforsaken hour (4:45am for Kale, 5:15am for me) to head out to some unforsaken place (Lim Chu Kang aka "way out in the boondocks") for the season's first road race. Picked my dad off at the golf club for his usual sunday morning game (also at some unearthly hour) and then proceeded out to the race location, which by the way, happens to be in the spookiest part of Singapore, among all the cemeteries.


Got there bloody early. Waited in the car all grouchy cos the mozzies were eating me alive. Stupid repellent didn't work either. Race started late (as usual) at 7:20.

Guys were off for 25 laps of about 5km each. We sat and watched for the first 10 or so laps and then got our butts in gear for the feeding laps. Kale and I have come to the conclusion we need to devise a code for this feeding thing... somehow "tbe other one, in a couple" does not translate into: "short bottle with water during next lap". So anyhow, he got his fair share of liquids.. and the race carried on for a good 2 and half hours in the unforgiving sun.

There was a thai team that was kicking ass, but somehow they got dropped and at the end of it, Kale managed to bag 4th. Not bad, eh? I'm sure there're more "techy" details to describe the race.. but I'll leave that to the cyclist himself.

Have attached some pictures from this morning below. Would have done a collage, but after being in the sun (and the boondocks) for 5 hours and then rushing off to move stuff and clean the new place, I'm totally zonked. The good news is the house is finally habitable. New place + camera should = pictures of new place. However, New place + camera + waking up before dawn = no pictures of new place.

Will take some tomorrow and tuesday. Am sure we'll have plenty to show you. Big move happens on tuesday.. Damn.



Kale, Irwin (sp?) and Nick before the start of the race. (note how early it is.. sun isn't fully up yet..)

Chasing a Thai bullet ||
Close up shot sometime mid-way through the 25 laps

Kale with 2 "suckers"
Final sprint
The Cycleworx team

Proof that I was there
Lovely, lush scenery of Lim Chu Kang

Last year's overall winners

Prize giving ceremony

Losing my street cred

So today was a big day. I've had a pretty standard hairstyle for the past 2.5 years - permed long hair. The only difference is that the first perm wasn't so great (think "ramen") and the last 2 were great.

So since the wedding(s) are over and my perm's growing out, I thought it'd be a good time for a change. Just in time for Chinese New Year.

Should have heeded the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"! The cut took off about 5 years off my age.. my clients already think I'm fresh out of school.. now they're going to think I'm on an internship or something! There goes any credibility I had!

On top of it looking REALLY weird when I walked out of the salon cos they had blown it stick straight, I was also bummed cos I didn't get my "frequent haircuttee" discount cos it was right before CNY. Duh. So I blew a bomb on a haircut that doesn't look all that different from my college haircut courtesy of "supercuts". hmm.

Anyway, have tacked some before and after shots below, everyone loves before and after shots, no? Am contemplating perming it again in March, once I can save up enough cash!

It's started curling a bit since this afternoon, so it looks a little better and more natural in these pictures! phew!

Ok lah, back to packing... big day tomorrow, Kale's got the first bike race of the season.. and then the first phase of the move begins. Wish us luck!


Before front

Before - back


After- front


After- back

Dinner with the gals

Met up with Vanessa and Dawn for dinner at Raffles City to just catch up..
Since we don't have a pic of us all 3 of us together (at least none that we remember), and I had the camera with us, we took the opportunity to take a group piccy.


The girls at dinner

stuffed

I had a free lunch at Prego's today courtesy of my extra-curricular activity at work. Not bad, eh? Stuffed myself silly with calamari, pasta and finally the signature Prego's tiramisu to round off the meal. The rest of the group ordered a bottle of white wine as well, so had a leetle to drink along with the rest of the meal.

Am soo soo stuffed now. Sitting at my desk trying to achieve shallow breathing since my tummy is so extended I can't take deep breaths! Can you say "glutton"? My cheeks are also bright red - a dead giveaway that I've had alcohol at some point in the recent past. Thank goodness it was a work affair, so it was all "legal".

A friend of Kale's sister (Celin) was in town over the past 2 evenings from Shanghai, so we took him out to dinner. We didn't realise he had never been to Singapore and so we wasted the first evening at a generic pasta restaurant. We were then faced with deciding between Lau Pa Sat and Jumbo seafood for dinner yesterday. In the end, his desire for warm weather won, and we had dinner al fresco at the Lau Pa Sat. Took a few pics and will upload them here later tonite.


Karl enjoying the warm weather

All of us pigging out



On another note, the washer and fridge arrive at the house today. Mom's over there calling the shots since this thing called "work" got in the way of Kale and I being there. Our plan for moving in on Sunday has also been nixed since the condo management at our current place has kindly informed us that we can't move on Sundays cos it'll monopolise the lifts. Duh. So we're moving in next Tues.

Guess in a way, that's better since Kale's got a race on Sunday and will probably be dead tired after anyway.

Ok, better get back to work after lunch.. waiting for meeting to begin..

go home, your stinkin' english's no good around here

ok, so i know this is probably not that funny, and is actually kinda frustrating but looking back, it's a little amusing. today, our contractor told me that he can't understand my husband's "american english"...

so yes, i whip out my singlish (which, by the way, is improving by the day) and manage to solve the miscommunication problem, lah. so damn, i guess i'm designated "liaison" for this reno then. the lucky bastard just got out of dealing with the contractors, and i can't even fault him for it.. aiyohhh...

so yeah, guess his english is no good around here. i think that's how i feel around kale's friend jim. don't understand 3 out of 4 words that come out of his scottish mouth. so much for english being the "global" language. bah.

Big progress

Today was a big day in our renovation history.. the flooring was finally started today AND the kitchen cabinets were finally put in today. Amazing how much better the kitchen looks with the cabinets in. The guys come back on monday to put in the doors and handles.

The parquet flooring in the living and dining areas are just about laid out. The floors will be "rested" for a couple of days before the nails are pulled out and the surface ground and varnished. Should be on time to move in next weekend.. phew!


Kitchen with cabinets (sans doors)

Kitchen (looking the other way)

Looking out of (and at) the kitchen door

The living room with the floors finally laid down

Close-up of the floor with the nail-heads sticking out

Looking in through the main door

The current house in a state of disarray (see the packing cartons in the foreground - proof that we haven't been packing as much as we're supposed to)

Reno pics

So the timber for the floor finally came in. We thought we were in trouble cos Uncle Roland informed us yest that the timber supplier hadn't brought the wood in yet. Thankfully the wood arrived and he had a chance to sort the wood for the various rooms by today. He sorted the wood according to color (lighter and more homogenous ones for the living and dining room and darker ones for the rooms).

Took some pics today.. not much different.. but hopefully there are some better pics in here. The kitchen cabinets will also come in next Monday, so we should hopefully be able to move in on schedule next weekend. yippee!


The kitchen with our "rocket booster" lights (as coined by Uncle Roland)

The living/dining room with the kitchen door and the wood strips for the flooring

In the master bedroom

Master bedroom again

Reno update

Ok, air conditioner units are in! Bathroom fixtures and all the lights (save 1) are in. We're in business...it's amazing what ambient lighting will do for you in terms of jazzing up a place!

Now all that's left are the parquet floors, the kitchen cabinets, shower screen, kitchen door and touching up of the paint. The a/c guys left grimy marks and chipped paint off while they were doing up the a/cs.

Was going to take some pictures and give you guys a live update.. but sorry, forgot the camera last evening. Will try to go down and take some pics tomorrow.

Pictures of the ongoing reno

As promised, have uploaded some pics of the ongoing renovation. Hopefully gives the people who haven't seen the place an idea of the house, and those who have seen it a better idea of what it'll look like when it's done. Went over today and think bathrooms are going to be kitted out today, and hopefully we'll have floors by the end of the week!


View out of the master bedroom window

View out of the master bedroom door. The door on the right leads to the master bath, and the blue room across the aisle is the "dressing room"

View of the "wet area" in the kitchen. The washer and dryer will go behind the partition, and the sink will be along this side of the partition

Our living room with all the electrical appliances and lights in one corner.

old fogey

i'm such an old fart.. it's only midnight on a saturday nite and i feel zonked, like it's way after my bedtime! and the worst part is that i took a loooong nap this afternoon - from 4 to just after 6pm!

went to catch "meet the fokkers" with kale and selene.. was a good movie... highly recommend it for ben stiller fans. i thought it was better than the first one. movie ended at 11:30pm, which explains why i'm still up at this time.

anyhow, reno is going ok, went to ikea to get more stuff for the house (i'm racking up my ikea "friends" points...) and then headed over to the house to drop the stuff off. we officially have lights in the bathrooms now.. taps are going in today, and by next tues, there'll be air conditioning.. woo hoo!

ok.. time to shower and catch some zzzs. need to hunker down and get started on that performance appraisal exercise tomorrow. damn. procrastination has always been one of my biggest weaknesses.

i'm seeeck...

i'm sick. it's official. went to the doc today and got antibiotics. but what blows is that while i was apparently sick enough for antibiotics, i apparently wasn't sick enough for an MC. (for the readers who aren't singaporean, an MC is what you need to get out of work and claim a sick day). so yeah, i was stuck at work sniffling and sneezing through a day of work. just wanted to crawl home and sleep. antibiotics have a crappy way of leaving you feeling totally devoid of energy. bleah.

it's been a rather crazy time at work. they announced some portfolio changes at work at yesterday's corporate planning seminar, so some of the projects that my group handles will be transfered to another group. this means change, and we all know that change isn't usually an easy thing to deal with. so on top of having to manage my usual workload, i'm also dealing with trying to figure out what my work priorities should be in the short and long term respectively.

anyhow, rushed down to the new house today cos the appliance people were dropping off the stove, oven and hood. thankfully mom was there cos they had already dropped off the stuff by the time i got there. as usual, all the craziness at work starts in the 15 mins before you're supposed to leave! didn't leave till a whole load later than i had planned.

good news is that the kitchen tiles are laid, we have some semblance of the kitchen/wet area divider, the walls are painted and the cement floor looks smoothened out. the new cabinet guy gave a quote and i'll be meeting him again tomorrow after work to settle on materials and other nitty-gritty. everything looks on track, and i guess if all goes well (and if i don't jinx it by saying so here), we should be able to move in b4 chinese new year.

we carted all the lights, taps and sink over to the new place, grabbed a quick bite across the street (ah, the wonder of having a shopping centre across the street!) and came straight home. am feeling like crap. throat feels like sandpaper and i'm generally feeling a little like jello. the husband promises i'll feel better tomorrow (he's one day ahead on this flu bug.. and is speaking from experience), so we'll see how that goes. i swear he passed me this bug.. grr.

am going to be a good girl, shower and then catch some zzzs. was going to start working on my appraisal write-up today, but guess that's not going to happen! think i should leave something important like that for a time when i'm more lucid!

will take pictures of the place tomorrow (it was too dark today to get any pics) and load them up so you can see how it's progressing. other than the color of the master bedroom (turned out a cool green instead of a warm green like i wanted it) i think everything else looks great. not bad for picking paint shades while standing in the void deck of our building. we selected all the paint colors in a matter of 2 mins. and here i was envisioning mixing colors to get the exact shade that i wanted! guess reality has to land sometime!

ok, shower it is.. all grimy from carrying stuff...

status update on da house

so my good ole mom headed down to the apt today to be "site supervisor" for the day. she says the bedrooms have been painted, and the 2 spare rooms (aka the bike room and the closet) look great. she says the green in the master bedroom is a little pastel (not exactly the look i was going for, but i guess i'll have to see it to figure out whether i like it or not). they're starting work on painting the walls in the main living area, and have just about finished laying the tiles in the kitchen.

so yes, Uncle Roland told my mom to convey the message to us that we needn't be so worried. everything will be completed by the time we need it to. guess he's tired of us chasing him, eh?

mom also said that things are going well.. so not to worry. the cabinet guy hasn't come back with the quote yet, but again, Uncle Roland says not to worry. i think that's why i could never be in the construction business.. i am OBSESSIVE about timelines and gantt charts. all this waiting around and not knowing would drive me nuts. what am i saying? it IS driving me nuts! but i guess in the grand scheme of things i'm having a much better time than most others. i know everyone else i've spoken to has had horror stories to tell ... so i'm guessing renovations are just generally a pain in the ass!

will see the place tomorrow when we bring the loot over there.. will update you guys with more on the house and hopefully some pictures..

renovation diary

We were supposed to meet Roland today at the apartment to go over the kitchen cabinet quote and drop off the sink that we were picking up from the store today. Good thing we called Roland before we headed over to the house, cos he apparently was somewhere out in Woodlands and didn't have the key to the padlock he put on the house. Sketchy, eh?

So we ended up trudging off with the sink and swung by Uncle Richard's (Kale's biking friend) to pick up some boxes so we can start packing our crap up. He was kind enough to give us a ride back home, and so now we can officially use the term "everything but the kitchen sink" ... EXCEPT we actually DO have the kitchen sink at home too!

Had a little snafu at the sink store where they tried to swindle us out of $45 but we were able to get out of that one.. thank goodness. This renovation has milked us out of enough money as is!

Tired...

This past weekend zipped by in a wink of an eye. We kicked the weekend off with a simple dinner at home (to detox after a week and a half of eating HUGE meals every day with the 2 families) and then headed down to catch Kumar at the Boom Boom Room before they close this coming week. The show was great! Trannies imitating Britney, Madonna and singing malay songs in Sarong Kebayas and doing stand-up comedy... my idea of good entertainment! Too bad they're not going to be around anymore. Didn't make it to the 2nd set (it was already 1:45am by the time we left, and they didn't look like they were going to start the 2nd set anytime soon).

Spent Saturday getting curtains made, buying fixtures and nailing down stuff with our very own PCK - Uncle Roland. Yup, fun stuff.. trying to corner a contractor into giving an EXACT figure for the job. Damn, it's amazing the kinds of things they "leave out" of a quote - $450 for pipes... oh, you want hot water? well, then that's $780. oh yah, in order to lay the tiles on your front curb, we'll need to grind your grille... that's another $120.. and the list goes on. Think we have the list almost there though. It's scary how the numbers just start adding up. The really scary thing is that Uncle Roland is actually a family friend. Can you imagine what any tom, dick and harry of a contractor would be "forgetting" to tell us? egads.

Anyhow, we picked up more fixtures today (spent 4 hours at IKEA), and the day was practically over. All done (just about..) with the fixture shopping. One more stop tomorrow for toilet fixtures, and then we should hopefully be all set.

This renovation has taken over our lives. To think that I was actually worried about not having anything to occupy myself with after the chinese wedding. So naive.. worry not my child.. for the renovation shall end up consuming any free time you might have.. well, at least until Chinese New Year!

It's late, and it's time for a shower and then bed.. have to face work tomorrow. Bleah. Full day of meetings. Good news is that it'll at least pass quickly.

Pictures of the Singapore wedding

Picked up the soft copy of the pictures from Benny, our VERY artistic wedding photographer. Decided to post larger pictures of the group photos... so that everyone can see themselves a little clearer.


The extended Soh family..

Big family picture before the tea ceremony

More family at the Swissotel before the tea ceremony

The jie-mei

The "brothers"

Picture of the Buonerbas outside the Fullerton Hotel (on the Cavenagh Bridge)

The Sohs + Kale

Have also put together some collages of more "candid" photos throughout the morning. Trusty powerpoint triumphs again! =)


Picking up the bride...

Tea ceremony proper

Will put up the photos of the wedding reception when I get the chance. Think 2 collages is about all I can stand at 1 go! enjoy...

Tail end of 2004

Ok, so I haven't been very vigilant about updating this site over the past 2 weeks or so. But if you knew what was going on in my life over this period, you'd understand!

The last week of 2004 kicked off with a bang with hair-removal on Monday morning (a pre-wedding beautification must), lunch with Vanessa and Dawn to swop xmas pressies and shop for other ppl's pressies and then the inflow of guests begun on Monday night with Tim and Julie. That in itself should have pre-empted us for the chaos and mayhem that would ensue over the next week or so. Yours truly was too complacent and thought that she knew exactly which flight Julie and Tim came in on... of course, when we actually got to the airport (there were 3 flights all coming in from NRT within an hour of each other), I suddenly wasn't so confident anymore. Turns out their flight was delayed, so we hung about the airport for almost an hour and finally rolled out of there close to 1am.

Tues morning brought a surprise - Alysha called bright and early to say that she had miraculously gotten in 10 hours ahead of schedule. We rushed down to get her.. found out SIA had found her a seat on a flight that she wasn't supposed to be on (comforting thought, eh?.. wonder how many other people are flying on different flights than scheduled), and the airline had lost her bags. I come to understand that this apparently happens to her pretty often (the losing luggage part, not the coming in 10 hours early part).

Spent part of the day shopping for essentials to tide her over till her luggage arrives (yes, that means I had reason AND company to shop! woo hoo!). End up having to buy myself a new outfit since A HOLE SUDDENLY APPEARED IN THE SEAT OF MY JEANS!!! Sob sob... now I have to go hunt for a new pair of jeans. Does anyone know how hard it is to find a pair of jeans that fit??? I had that pair for 3 and a half years... ack!

Managed to make it to the airport to pick up Celin and Mr Dad and Mrs Mom without too much other drama... and then had a good dinner at Da Dong restaurant in Chinatown.

Wednesday was shopping, wedding prep (nails and getting wedding car decorated), seafood dinner and then the Night Safari. Note to self: not good idea to attempt the night safari the night before your wedding...

Thursday: Wedding. Will write more about that later, with pictures.

Friday: New Years Eve. Picked up the keys to our new flat at HDB in the morning (read: no time to sleep in and enjoy the lush hotel room...) Popped by to see our new piece of real estate, and then got ready for New Year's Eve party, aka Shanghai Night.

Have attached photos of the seafood dinner and the crazy New Year's Eve party. Have given up on photoshop for the moment. Knocked out the collage in 5 mins using Powerpoint.. so much easier. Will take my time with the photoshop, me thinks.

Enjoy...


Leading up to 2005...