PAL Official Seal

Like Mompoet - Word From The Burbs, I made myself an official emblem, but for my Passionate About Life P.A.L blog site.

I now place it permanently to the right of my blog.

An interesting and fun way to create your official seal, you may want to try out and create yourself your own site emblem. This site is also good to make seals for certificates for my son's school extra-curricular projects.

Try it if you have not. Click PAL seal or this link.

My Man, Hady!

Its official, as of 9:00pm tonight, Hady Mirza was declared the Singapore Idol 2006!

He takes over the crown champion of last year's, Taufik Batisa.

After repeated pounding of the Redial button on my phone, my son has chalked-up over S$40.00 worth of phone bill calling the voting number 1900-1121902 for Hady.

A small investment for a talented young man who will do Singapore proud. Not to mention the Malay community as a whole, the second time around!

He always chooses the most difficult songs, but did them outstandingly. I was amazed at his high range when he sang "Through The Fire" by Chaka Khan. Not just anybody, but Chaka Khan! Awesome vocal power with a wide range showed he was the man!

He deserves every support he got as he was the only competitor that was consistent in his perfect delivery every week, yet pushing himself higher thus raising the bar to a higher level every week for the competition as a whole.

Jonathan Leong was good and charismatic. He definitely has the X-factor, engaging, but lacks the powerful vocals and range. He does subdued songs, cool songs that suit his vocal range, which sometimes in one tone always, I felt.

Nonetheless, Jonathan has mass appeal, especially for the young ladies in this region with his bad-boy, rocker look, yet cool and collect appearance.

He will go far commercially as Dick Lee and Ken Lim - the Singapore Idol judges have mentioned. He will have staying power in the music business as Florence puts it, while Jacintha thinks he is already a Singapore Idol.

All the best to both Idols!

Hady, your fan here will support you all the way... right down to the wire, even through the fire! Fire? Well I have to think about that one. Congratulations Hady Mirza!

Faith In Me

As the call of Maghrib prayer was heard, preciously at 7:01pm, my son and I broke our fast for the first day of fasting in the month of Ramadan.

We made it special by having our dinner at Habib Seafood open-air restaurant at Street 81. Wify was not able to complete the family dinner because there was good business at her shop when I called her to meet up.

Chicken Rice was my son's favourite, so I had the same, but with side dishes of Butter Prawns, Kailan in Oyster Sauce and Tom Yam Seafood Soup to go with it.

Quite a helpful of dishes for just two people, but it tasted great when you have been fasting for the whole day since dawn till dusk... abstaining from food and water intake the whole period.

Ice-Milo and Ja-Ja Liang Tea were drinks gulped and finished half-way through dinner. We decided to order a large cup... well it really looked like a jar, of Longan Drink. It really did the job the quench our thirst.

Wify is the most strong-willed person I have ever known. Personally, she can be so energetic doing house chores, tallying previous day's sales and then attend to customers in her shop from 1:00 till 10:00pm daily.

This wife of mine amazes me daily. Love her conviction, love her dearly.

I guess my son gets his strong will to fast since he was still in kindergarten. Wanting to fast just like us, for half the day at first, a few days in the month.

He became strong-willed just like my wife, when he was still in Primary One. Quite hard at times, but a good nap takes away some time and he was all good right through break fast time at dusk.

He has since been completing the whole month of fasting every year and seemed so natural to him abstaining from food and water. I remember that I was terrible at fasting. I was even dragging myself back home from school and "collapse" into my bed spent when I reached home. That was when I was in Secondary School.

My son amazes me too, with his ease of fasting.

So this will carry on for the length of the month of Ramadan. After which we will celebrate triumph if self-control... abstaining from bad habits, gossips, ill-feelings towards another person, lots of prayers to cleanse ourselves and be nearer to The Almighty.

I am grateful to The Almighty that I have two wonderful people to share the joys in my life.

A Family Visit

I had quite a rude awakening from my sleep by the loud motor sound coming from my bedroom window.

It was the Poi Ching school janitor who was fogging the school compound as a mosquito breeding prevention routine. He started early at about 7:00am on a Saturday morning.

Well, I guess I should tolerate as this is for the good of the children as well as the surrounding area near my home. The fogging made a misty cloud with a faint kerosene smell.

It made the place look like a scene from the movie, The Fog. At one point the fog floated across the school compound and into our courtyard garden.


My son soon woke up too, but Wify was out flat. She was still fast asleep, tired from yesterday's hard work she put in at the shop.

As soon as the fog subsided, and the loud motor sound became faint, the morning birds started to come by to visit the courtyard, with its pleasent calls.

This morning, was a special one as I witnessed a family of five Black-naped Oriole came perching in the tree tops right in front of my Gym Room window, as I was seated in front of my PC.

The three birds made such loud fluty notes with ascending and decending calls. The five stayed perched in the tree for quite a long while. I just had observe the family and snap pictures of the five as I have never seen so many in one group before.

Pity though, I did not have enough zoom in my camera to take better picture.


I have noticed for quite a while now that there were two of these birds at first, routinely came by the courtyard and sang their songs. And now, the couple came back again as if to show everyone their large family.

What a wonderful sight!

Can never compare to Anne's and Geo's fantastic collection of wild life photos from Sister Celtic blog, but it was a pleasant sight to start my Saturday morning.

Advance To Excel-lence

Today, I completed my 2-day Macros & Advance Excel for Automation & Management course at Nanyang Polytechnic, conducted at School of IT in Block L, Level 4 L445.

The equivalent of a 60-football field school is only 4 bus stops away from my workplace.

The course was really what I wanted to better arm me with the knowledge for more advance worksheet tools and creation, as well as effective data management.

My everyday worksheets and reports will get better once I update them with the knowledge that I have gathered that will benefit both me and the internal people I work with, as well as my customers.

The Lecturers - Ms Unise Ang and Mr Lim were great... systematic and helpful. The course content was what I really needed for my daily use of MS Office 2003 Excel.

The school facilities are outstanding in my book, and the canteen food delicious as well as cheap. Kids these days are so fortunate. Luxurious as compared to when I was schoolling then... long, long time ago.

Yikes! I begin to sound like Grandpa.

Anyway, I consider myself lucky to have the chance to attend the class in replacement of my Boss who was not able to go.

Amin.

Its Raining Flowers

On my way to Carrefour in Suntec City with my son to buy hamster cages there, I just had to stop along the way because it was such a photo opportunity with the flowers by the road side in glorious bloom!

Though the day was cloudy with occasional drizzles, but the sight was so cheerful just looking at the city in bloom. An awesome feast for the eyes!

Hand-Me-Downs

Last count, we now have 21 hamsters and counting...

Yes, they are breeding like there is no tomorrow!

The population explosion is beyond what we can cope... "Oh, they breed almost every month..." was the response I got when I told the sales person at Pet Safari about the babies arrival.

Yikes! Now they tell us.

It started out as a class project as I said before, which made our son wanted one as a reward when he did well in his final year examination.

These little creatures were all so adorable when we had two of them - a male and a female, when our son wanted for passing his final examinations last year.

Yes, we thought it was a great gift idea for our son on responsibility too. Now we are responsible for building a "Hamster City" right in our home.

Wonder if it would be cruel if the male is neutered?
Would it be possible? Has anyone ever done this before...?

Need to research on this. Gut feeling... it is a stupid thought.

Anyway... this afternoon, my son and I headed-off to his friend's house in Sennett Place for hand-me-down hamster cages.

My son's friend was a nice boy, and his mother was thoughtful enough to give away an unopened pack of pine-shavings they had for their long dead hamsters.

Quite worn-off and rusted here and there, but the gesture was very, very nice indeed.

I was afraid that the rust will make the hamsters sick, so since we were heading to Pet Safari at Eastpoint in Simei, I bought two sets of cages.


I was looking for a cage that was cheap enough but large enough for mother and babies to be in comfortably. It would also be ideal enough as give-aways when we find suitable and caring people to adopt them.

The best I could find there cost S$26.88 each, before less 10% with the member card. I bought two sets.

One, for Julie, the expectant mother to be who had her twins barely a month ago. And another for Princess who is stuck in a plastic Terrarium that was used for Awang, our Red-eared Slider terrapin.

Yes, the sales person was right! Babies born about every month. Yikes! Double yikes!

Nonetheless, all are dear to us. Each one has its own character when we watch them and interact with them. A Wify puts it they are "oh... so cute," while pouting her lips whenever she hold one in the palm of her hand.

I agree, and we am quite fond of each one of them. It is quite hard and sad to give them away, but I start to feel an infestation of "cute little rodents" in our home and its over-whelming just trying to cope with the baby-boom... every month.

One healthy sex life, I must say. Oops! I said the "S" word. My first.

Put only males or only females, and they will fight with one another. Put the two genders together and they will multiply exponential.

So, with good and comfortable cages, coupled with caring families who are willing to take them in, slowly but surely, we have no choice but to give them away for adoption. It is the only solution.

Our son came out with the idea of have photos of each of them before we send them off for adoption. He already created "Birth Certificates" of each one of them.

With a passport-sized photo to fit into each certificate, the name and the family-tree, this should be an interesting project for us. I am asked to take photos. Its his way of saying good-bye to each of them and remember them still.

Wish these beautiful creatures will have good families to love and care for them.

Blogger Be Beta?

Like a moth to a flame, I am always enthusiastically attracted to new technologies.

Unlike burning by the fire, new stuff sometimes require further tweaking until all is stable and superbly improved. I hope.

This Beta Blogger is great and just what I wanted without really needing to know HTML as the patches are catered to blogs.

All is good to me, but unknowingly non-beta bloggers were not able to leave comments on a beta-blog. It came to light only when I received two emails telling me their difficulty to leave a comment in this blog.

Fortunately enough for me, a dear fellow blogger - Andrew from Past Tense was able resolved the problem and share with me how, or at least for now, go around the problem to successfully leave a comment in this beta blog.

Here is how you do it:

• Type in your comment as per normal.


• Press the PREVIEW button to view your comment.


• Press the PUBLISH button to post your comment.

And viola! You are done.
The only thing you need to do is to preview it first before you publish.

Hope you will come again and share with me your thoughts and ideas in the comment section like always. I am always happy to receive your honest thoughts.

Thank you and take care.

And Babies Make...

Yep, another "burst" of happiness as we welcome our babies today.

Our 2nd Generation hamster, Sandy has just given birth to 6 litters this afternoon.

My son and I were able to witness and capture the magical moments of hamster labour and births... all 6 of them!

Like any animal, the mother instinct kicked in and Sandy knew exactly what she had to do with every birth.


The first two births were about 3 minutes apart, while the 3rd and 4th were about 8 minutes. The 5th about 10 minutes and thought we had them all, the last but not least came 15 minutes or so later.

This morning, Sandy was active but became restless and slowed down by midday. She was actually seen panting as she laid in the corner of the cage. Labour pains I presumed.


Sandy seemed to know exactly what she was doing from the first birth. She eat the placenta for the first 3 babies and stopped at the 4th. Full? Err... I do not know.

The 5th one she did clear off and cleared and eat away the placenta, but left the 6th alone. Definitely full.

So the two babies had their umbilical cord attached to them until it dried out. She did not do anything to it, so I snipped it off with the help of my son.

Not sure if that was alright, but the two babies were stuck together, entangled by each other's umbilical cord.


She was quite restless after that. I believe she was looking for a good, private place to have a litters, as she frantically dug into the pallet-bedding. She even sent one or two of her babies flying off into the air while too preoccupied with the burrowing.

We helped her a little by separating ply of tissues and shredding it into thin strips for the babies bedding.

We place the tissues in the little green-dome house and transferred the babies into it, trying not to touch them with out bare hands for fear of confusing the mother of its scent.


Finally led Sandy into her little green house, where she stopped being restless. She stayed in the house and started to tend to her litters just like all loving mothers do.

Yes! Mission complete. And babies make... 17! Yikes!

Singapore Ideal 2006

I watched Wednesday's Singapore Idol and totally forgot about the next day's results show. I did not know who was eliminated until I saw an article at the back of Life! that Paul Twohill was out.

I breathed a sigh of relief that my favourite singer was not booted-out as I did not help him by voting for him this week.

The last standing 4 Idols had the judges picked out the songs for them to sing and showcase their singing talents and showmanship abilities.

Hady Mirza was superb, while Jonathan Leong was great too with his laid-back song which suited him perfectly.

Here's the thing...

There is just not a big enough talent pool of budding singers here, so we make do with a few that really shine, while the rest will fade out through the course of the competition eventually.

Yes, I am stating the obvious.

It is very obvious who are the ones that will be at the finals, while the rest will have their dignified exit the last day they sing... with the judges praising them for their efforts to improve and for their tenacity to receive blow after blow of criticisms every week for their less than so-so performance.

This is of course exceptional as far as Matilda D' Silva is concern. She has an incredible voice, but lack appeal to the voters. She should be the last 4 standing as far as singing goes. Hack! Last 3!

You will know whose turn to leave when the judges give praises to them even though they, well... suck at singing. Nonetheless the audience love their persona -a dignified exit for taking part and enjoying the ride.

So, with 3 left - Hady, Jonathan and Jasmine, the last two is obvious to me from the very beginning. Honestly it was obvious to pick the final two when it first started.

What you see during the course of the competition is that they get better at singing. Well... most of them.

Jasmine Tye gave a few surprising performances, but still too mechanical-like and I do not feel the maturity in her voice. That is just me... a CD buying fan for the real singers I like.

Now, I am banking on Hady Mirza simply because he can sing... really sing! Not because he is of the same race... well that is true in a small part of me, but because he has quite a vocal range and has been delivering the songs perfectly and consistently throughout the length of the competition.

That is why the judges picked songs that are challenging for Hady and perfect for Jonathan.

Hady has to show his vocal range and hit those high notes, while Jonathan has to ooze his charm while he sings.

Both are terrific singers, but if you were to judge mainly on the singing, then Hady is a clear winner. Jonathan is commercially bankable with a vast Chinese audience in Asia.

Do the math and you get your winner. Nonetheless, I am going to invest some of my money to vote for the dark horse, Hady Mirza for his singing which has already reached the Pro ranks.

All the best Hady! Hope this one supporter will make a difference to you and Singapore music industry at large. Be prepared to show your best at World Idol.

The Population Explosion

"Ayah! Another hamster is giving birth!" That was my son calling me at work this morning.

This is barely 3 weeks after the last female gave birth. This is the 3rd generation of hamsters!

Apparently, we could not give names to the hamsters because they are propagating at lightning speed than we can manage to get to know each one of them, separate them into different cages to prevent them from fighting for dominance, territory or whatever.

I guess I was treating these hamsters like cats; their characters and antics that carry the name given. Hamsters are just too fast moving.


This new addition to the family makes err... 13th? Initially from the humble two. I know, "incest" is bad, very bad, but we are trying to cope with the population explosion here.

I definitely feel that the time has come to give away some to my nephews or nieces as long as I feel they genuinely want to have the hamster as pets and be responsible to care for them for the rest of the hamster's natural life.

I have never heard of neutered hamsters before, but I guess I just have to Google my information in the Internet to find out. Another thing to consider is the cost of such procedure.

It is like this...


If you have both of the same gender, they will be great together in a cage, but when they are in heat, they start to fight for dominance, I think.

So, if you have a male and female couple, then they procreate and propagate exponentially. As if that is not scary enough, it is the inbreed that is bad, very bad.

For now, we have to find new cages to separate the Moms and their off-spring from other hamsters and our home now looks like a hamster-breeding farm!


Need a solution. Must think fast before an exodus of hamster babies flood the living room!

Farewell Little Chubby

My son's Windows Live Messenger popped up on my office PC screen this morning.

It was an opportune time to ask him to remind his mother to give Chubby her medication this morning. Chubby was our pet hamster, adopted from my son's class project on responsibility.

I guess some children are not as responsible as we hoped they would be.

My son's classmate who owned the hamster decided to abandon her, as her parent could afford the time to care for the pet. All this at the expense of a living thing?! This is outrageous! A teacher actually initiated such a project without fully thinking through the implications.

Owning a pet is a life-long responsibility of the owner. For as long as the pet is alive, the owner has to be responsibility to care for it as best as her or she can.

A pet is definitely not a toy to discard or put aside when the novelty has subsided. It has to be loved and cared for. The Almighty's creation that we brought into our home, is to be entrusted with care for as long as its natural life entails.

I know that I am straying away from what actually wanted to say in the first place, and noticed that I am not happy with what has happened. I am just unhappy that the lesson is taught at the expense of the hamster - a living being.

Not any more...

Alright. Let me get back to what happened this morning.

As I was tell my wife about how the first medication is to be given to Chubby, my wife cried over the phone upon noticing that Chubby was dead.

"Ayah... Chubby has died!" She cried, "Chubby... Chubby, wake-up sayang!"

Chubby was already cold, stiffed in my son's palm when he took her out of cage.

My heart just sank.

Chubby was herself again late afternoon after Dr. Sulyni, the vet at Pet Safari's Animal Recovery Centre attended to her.

Dr. Sulyni had given her Probiotics, Vitamin B and injected her with Hartman's Solution to rehydrate her, after checking her and found nothing wrong, except that she was dehydrated and weak. Her weight was only 26 grams!

Chubby did give a struggle several times during the administrations of the medicines . She bit both the vet and her assistant each on their palms. She was feisty. She was a fighter. She was pissed after that injection.

Running about the cage with full of zest, she started to eat and eat a lot too. My son and I was totally delighted to see it. She liked to eat and was a big eater. She was big and heavy, thus her name.

She was running about too when we saw her last at 11:00pm, just before we turned-in.

"Good night Chubby..." my wife greeted her as we watched her getting some sleep herself. Her head poking out of her little yellow house as she begin to doze off.

You had quite an afternoon at the vet. I thought to myself.

"You gave me quite a scare there Chubby," I told her out loud, "good night Chubby..."

That was the last time we saw her alive.

I peeked at her cage before I left for work this morning and thought she was still sleeping, since nothing was stirring in that little yellow house of hers.

She was not herself for the past 3 days. We thought nothing of it except that she was not as enthusiastic enough to get her first cheese for the day. She was also not drinking much either. She moved around but hardly touched her food. We still did not think anything was amiss.

Yesterday afternoon was heart-wrenching when we noticed that she was not able to run about, and crunched and curled a lot after a few steps. It was a sure sign she was seriously sick, even for amateur hamster owners like us.

My son and I looked-up in the Internet and found several disturbing medical probabilities from the way she was reacting, the symptoms she showed.

We took her to the vet straight away, but thought of nothing serious would befall her. We were terribly wrong this morning.

I was like a zombie at work. I kept thinking about her and just like my wife and son, could not believe she actually is gone. We miss her dearly. Looking at the empty cage, I just felt a though she was still there. popping her head out anytime and come straight to the cage door for her cheese and a pet on her head.

Chubby. we love you. Whatever pain you had has now gone away. You are now at a better place. Thank you for sharing your love with us. I never thought a being so small can have such a big impact on our lives. Never thought she can make me be so mushy for her. What a soul!

Every time we look out our bedroom window, we will see the tree under which you were laid to rest, we think of the happy memories you have given the 3 of us. Thank you Chubby.

Happy 13th Anniversary!

Yes it is an unlucky number in the western world I was told.

Fortunately we are not westerners and as Muslims we are not suppose to be superstitious either. That makes our wedding anniversary of 13 years that more special.

I count my blessings everyday.

When at times I find it difficult to manage the stress I get from my work, remembering the blessings and the reasons I strive, make me calm and happy again.

I have my significant other whom I depend on to put my feet firmly on the ground. I am her opposite...

I splurge on techo stuff, she is thrifty spending money.
I act on impulse at times, she is calm and collect always .
I eat whatever I want, she controls our cholesterol intake.
I say stupid things I regret later, she exalts quietness.
I am bad at keeping secrets, she takes them to the grave.
I tend to forsake the Almighty, she embraces our faith back in Him.
I am fire. She is water.

I am happy our paths crossed and we are together till this day; our 13 years together as husband and wife.

I wish for more wonderful years together with her and our son, and grandchildren in the future... until we meet again in heaven.

I love you, my Wife.
Happy 13th Anniversary

At My Doorstep

I can now breathe a sigh of relief.

Now that I have cleaned-up the "garden" in the corridor in front of my door, I feel liberated. A burden taken off my chest.

It is definitely true from what I read in one of a fellow blogger about stress factors... if you keep off doing something you need to do, it will haunt you and stress your mind until you complete it.


One of my stresses have been relinquished once I finished doing the garden maintenance that I had put off for a good whole month.

Two pots of Fan Palms and a pot of Heliconia plant, already overgrown from the original pots we bought them from... have been re-potted to a much larger terracotta pots from Ikea.

The plants looked happy to me. Though I had no choice but to trim down my wild Duranta plants, cutting off its beautiful dark purple flowers blooming on the ends of its branches.


At the same time. the brightly yellowish-orange fruits were cut off too, leaving some visiting swallows shocked at the sight of me trashing down their lunch.

I repositioned the pots, trying to get as many pot nearest to the iron-rail parapet for maximum sunlight.

Unknown to my wife, the 3 pots of plants that had wilted was quite expensive. At S$60.00 a pot, it was good for half a year before it started to die its slow death, deprived of sunlight.


Even though it was an indoor plant, it needed a bright spot, but the large and heavy terracotta pots were not easy to be moved around. It was a sad state.

I felt like a serial plant killer, killing pot after pot of various "indoor" plants as long as I place them in the middle of the corridor, away from the light.


Hopefully this time, with most of the plants receiving daily morning sunlight, they will flourish even more for us to enjoy the serenity of the "outdoors" right at my doorstep.

Comex 2006 Again!

Had an interesting Friday lunch today.

Together with our Customer from UK, 4 of us headed off to Comex 2006 PC Show at the Singapore Expo from our Ang Mo Kio plant.

The journey should be about 30 minutes tops by car, but I guess we were all excited and talking in the car, that our driver friend drove us all the way to Suntec City instead!

After realizing, we carried-on to the expo via Nicoll Highway, but made a wrong turn while driving in the opposite direction. We finally ended-up on East Coast Parkway Expressway and was on our way about an hour after.

Strange! All 3 of us seemed confused about the correct route to the Expo. We were very embarrassed for loosing our sense of direction. Our Customer seemed to know the way more that we were. Strange!

The PC show was a bigger event this quarter. It started yesterday, 31 August and will end this Sunday, 3 September 2006.

We had about an hour's worth of browsing.

I took the opportunity to buy 2 sets of ink cartridges for Wify's Epson MFP CX4100. At 20% off the usual price, it was worth it. A set to replace and another on standby and use for the period before then next PC show.

The next trip will be to scout for my Son's Sony 1G M2 Memory Card for his Sony Ericsson's T610 cell phone, and maybe a Scandisk 2G SD Card for my Lumix FZ10 camera.

Had a hands-on with Panasonic's newest 10.1 Mega Pixel Lumix FZ50. Super-awesome features! Would have snapped that camera up if they had a trade-in scheme or something.

Then again, my Lumix FZ10 is still my priced possession, doing wonders for me with my amateurish photography skill... if I can call it as my skill.

So many things to see, so little time to do it.

On our way back, you guessed it! Our driver friend missed the exit from ECP, so we ended up in Telok Blangah and crossed Bukit Merah to get to Central Expressway or CTE. We were back at the office at 3:00pm.

Nobody blamed anyone for the loosing our sense of direction that afternoon. I just think all 3 of us took stupid pills this morning, so we were numb to our senses.

Wonder what really went through our UK Customer's mind...

The longest lunch I had this year, but at least we enjoyed the a scenic drive.