St. Patrick Graduation Night 2009

Jason attended his school graduation night on Thu 19 Nov 2009.

He was given a medal for his outstanding leadership and service in Track and Field & Peer Support Board that evening.

Needless to say, Jas enjoyed the company of his teachers and school friends tremendously......!

Here is a slideshow of the photos taken during his graduation night :

Well, so happy for them ..........!

( There is no such graduation night during my school days......sob....sob...)

David

Holidays in Penang - November 2009

Hi,

After Jason's 'O' level exams., the family flew to Penang for a short holiday to visit his grandparents.

Here is a short slideshow of the trip :

Well, if you plan to visit Penang soon during the school holidays, drop me a note and I can give you some advice to help you plan for it.

David

Singapore Lions Roar In Thailand

Singapore Lions score 1 goal to beat the Thailand soccer team at their home ground,in their Asian Cup Group E qualifier.

The victory helped Singapore leapfrog Thailand into second spot in the group and revived their hopes of qualifying for their first ever Asian Cup.

Duric was the goal scorer but all the players did well.

I have met Duric personally during my days in RHB Bank and Duric is a very pleasant guy. He is a great soccer player too especially at his age!

Congrats to the Singapore Lions.........!!!

David

Michelle Wie's First LPGA Title

I am happy for her that she finally won her first LPGA title.

Michelle closed with a threeunder 69 for a total of 13-under 275, two strokes ahead of Paula Creamer in the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, and finished off the win in style, hitting a bunker shot within a foot on the 18th hole to set up a birdie.

She used to always want to play against the men and hardly made headway. But she attracted a lot of attention and sponsorship..... and that means $$$...!


My friend who has a daughter on a golf scholarship in US now told me that Michelle Wie's family has taken the right approach to generate the publicity leading to lucrative sponsorship even if she did not win any trophy then.

Opportunity comes once and you grab it to make the $$$.


Anyway, congratulations to Michelle Wie's win....!

David

Manny Pacquiao Won Again!

Filipino boxer,Manny Pacquiao, is first boxer to win titles in seven weight classes.

Pacquiao took the World Boxing Organisation welterweight crown from Cotto in Las Vegas on Saturday night when the referee stopped the fight in the 12th round.

He did us, Asians, proud.

I hope he will retire when he is at the peak of his career and not greedy for more victories.

Congratulations ....!

David

Fallen Tree

While I was away in Penang in Oct, the tree outside my house fell...!

According to my Filipino maid, she claimed that a huge delivery truck passed by and brushed against the branches sticking out.

The driver and passengers came out to see the fallen tree but no one from the 2 houses came out so they drove away.

Since the tree fell and landed in front of my neighbour's house, he called the authorities to remove it and it was done almost immediately.

Unfortunately, they also removed the lovely big fern growing on the tree.....sob...sob....

Installing IDE Hard Disk Onto SATA Port

Hi,

I am so happy that I managed to installed one of my old Samsung 80GB hard disk into Jason's desktop PC.

The challenge was that there was no more IDE port and I did not want to install it using the IDE connection that was already used for the DVD Rewriter since there are 3unused SATA port.

After some research on the Internet, I found that there is such a gadget to link an IDE to a SATA connection or vice versa.

So off to Sim Lim Square (SLS) to look for it.

I bought it for S$18 and after fiddling around with it, I got it working....!

Hurray...!

It was quite challenging as it did not detect the HD initially and then only managed to detect 32GB out of 80GB in the HD.

If you know how and patient enough, you can get reasonable help from the Internet and then you do some trial and error.

I managed to overcome all the obstacles and I met my objective of installing the old HD into Jas's PC to give him more disk space.

Earlier, I also did some housekeeping and salvaged some disk space on his existing HD too otherwise, the PC could not even do a fragmentation as there was not enough work space for it.

Well, I enjoy playing with the PC upgrade.

A few weeks ago, my Filipino maid asked me to help her go to SLS to get a DIY PC for her to bring home; ie pay the shop to assemble a PC. It was slightly cheaper by at least S$100 but the QC and installation was done by me after all the components were assembled.

I dare not offer to build it for her though I did it a few years ago and it was also given to her subsequently and I believe it is still working in his brother's home in Philippines.

It has rekindled my interest in building a PC or looking at the motherboards and CPU, etc.... but I have no excuse to spend $$ building one for the fun of it. So the next best thing is to look into upgrading the Jason desktop PC......ha...ha....

Over the past few months, I have also be shopping for notebooks for a friend at the PC shows. One is coming again later this Nov.

So if you got an old PC for upgrade or even an old notebook to dispose of, give me a call ........ hopefully, I can help you or salvage some components that I can use or play with.....ha...ha...

David

Budget Flights

Hi,

The following observations are based on my own travels to and fro Penang over the past 6 months; flying at least once a month on the budget flight.

I have flown Air Asia once but subsequently flew on JetStar as I found that the pricing and flight times suit me best.

However, I must also said that I prefer to travel by JetStar as I can use the aero-bridge at Pg airport whereas Air Asia requires their passengers to walk from the aircraft to the airport; ie you have to climb the stairs and walk on the airport tarmac. I do not like it as I have a bad left knee.

Also, though I have only flown on Air Asia once only, I observed that the JetStar air crew are more helpful and service oriented.

JetStar allows me to carry a hand luggage of 10Kg which is sufficient for my purpose of travel. It also allows me to choose my seat without any additional charge.

The other observation on the booking of such budget flights are :

- Watch out for promotions as I manage to get a special price of S$30 for both ways; but you may have to book during a very short window and very early like 3 months ahead. So u need to know your schedule way ahead..... but may work well for those who are retired and have a flexible schedule.

- Check the travel dates, time and prices of a few budget airlines for comparison

- Flying different day and even times may have different prices

- One day difference in booking your flight can mean an increase of S$20

But being budget flight, it is definitely cheaper than a normal flight; eg my average price for JetStar is abour S$80 compared to S$315 on MAS or SIA.

But, you will not be pampered and no food and beverage allowed unless you buy from them. So book the meals when you are booking your flight as it may be cheaper else be prepared to pay S$3 for a bottle of mineral water.

My elder brother and younger sister flew Air Asia from Melbourne to KL and KL to Pg to visit my parents recently. It was about 7 hours of flight.

So conclusion.......

In my opinion, for short flights and if you are quite flexible with time, flying by budget airline is acceptable.

But for longer flights, you may want to re-consider budget flight unless you are prepared to rough it out;eg you may not be able to sleep well as the seats are not that comfortable and you should bring your own entertainment like watching a movie on your laptop.

I am quite lucky to-date, as I have no problem calling their call centres and booking online. So far, only one flight delayed for 1/2 hour only.

My family and I will be flying to Pg in Nov by budget airline again.

David

Happy 83rd Birthday to Mum-in-law

Hi,

This is one of those rare occasions that we manage to celebrate my mum-in-law birthday as she is the type of person who does not want any fuss or inconvenience to her children.

She is as old as my own father who also just have his birthday in Oct too.

Since she does not want to go out for a meal, we bought her a birthday cake for lunch at her home as my wife and I visit her every Friday and buy lunch to share with her.

So Happy Birthday, Mum....!