To bee…

A couple of weeks ago, the Spring breath woke the hibernating fruit trees. Over the course of a week, fruit trees were full of blossoms. I have been a keen photographer. Emphasis here is on keen, I decided to log the events of Spring. While photographing a plum blossom, a bee (I don't think it's a wasp as wasp do not do the pollinating thing or do they?) flew on to one of the flowers. Busily scampering from flower to flower, I tracked the insect and took in excess of 40 shots to come up with a couple. I could have sworn that the bee looked me in the eye. Well that's what weekends are for.
I have always subscribed to view that to be the best in what we do, regardless of work or play, just be yourself and enjoy. Yay (to quote Sarah).

Blogged and off.

Washed Out… maybe Not

It was planned a week ago that a group of us from work would arm ourselves with a digital camera and venture to the National Gallery and experiment with some night photography. The weather forecast last night was for rain. But knowing Melbourne, maybe the rain would cease by night fall. But it was not to be. It rained the entire day. This was good as Victoria's reservoirs are only averaging 46% full, or 54% consumed one way or another.

The day panned out to be just another day where one job led to the next and the next. The body was crying out for some much needed sushi. It seems to be doing that a lot - crying out for Japanese food. I've been having Japanese food for the last month!! I can even recognise if I get the same bowl when I get served. It's rather sad. But the food is good. Well it's that Omega-3 oil that is good for the body.

I was very happy to connect up with Sarah in Doha via Skype. I looked a little silly trying to speak into my laptop. Must remember to buy a head set. Fortunately, Sarah couldn't hear me and we ended typing our conversation at 40 words a minute. After trying to match Sarah's typing speed, my fingers were cramping and it was then I decided to pick up the phone. It was just great. My fingers were happy joy!

With the evening washed out. Plan B was to get to Pacific Seafood Restaurant in Richmond for a roast duck for dinner. Why they sell roast duck at a seafood restaurant is another story. I ended out buying more than just the duck - roast pork and "Char Siew" barbecue pork. I walk past a butcher shop and ended up inside buying 2 kilos of mince pork to make my special Singapore 'bak kua' or barbecue pork (no not Char Siew). I can never make enough to share. I eat as I cook them and by the time I finish making it, it's also finished.

The evening was quiet and peaceful. so peaceful that I fell asleep in the study. I was woken by Pauline to give her a hand to take some photos of her latest stuffed critters (bears and echidnas and seal pup)

In the end, everything fell into place. I did get to do a little photography, taking shots of little bears and the state's reservoirs got their fill albeit a couple of cc! The catchment areas always seem to be in the wrong place when it rains.

Tomorrow is frantic Friday. A couple of frantic meetings and hopefully it unwinds into the weekend. May be the 'Heating serviceman" for my parents house may call. May be not. But one thing is for sure. When my eyes opens and the clock says 11am, yay it's slowly starts… super Saturday.

Logging off the blog for now.

Living in Doha time

Got up very early this morning… if we were in Doha - 5.00am.

Having spent most of Saturday looking at Doha time on my ipod, Pauline and I ended up going to bed at 9.oopm Doha time. But we are in Melbourne, Australia! Just as well it's the weekend. It gave me a quiet time to finish my work and have more time to look at time on the ipod.

The plan for the day, Sunday, is to help Pauline dye some fabrics. This could be fun not having done this before. May have to sacrifice a Scanpan pot! There goes dinner.

Yesterday the fishes were happy when I went to feed them. The filter boxes needs cleaning though.


The "Heater Report"
I went to pick up Beng-Poh, a good friend our family and Gene and we ventured over to my parent's house, (they are still in Canberra) and look at the problem with the heater. I was in good hands. Beng-Poh is an engineer, Gene his technically minded and I am the driver.

We spent a few minutes prodding the control unit but everything seemed to be alright. We went out to the heating unit and opened it. Except for some well established spiders and their web strategically anchored around the pilot light, everything looked alright. As we were thinking about what could be wrong with the unit, Beng-Poh suggested that it could be something very simple, like a flick of a switch. One would think that switches abound but there is only one - manual or auto. I suggested it could be the pressure switch. (a highly technical input without any knowledge of what it is) We all scratched our heads. We read a label "Only to be opened by qualified person" and a 24oV and a lightning symbol. Aside from Beng-Poh, I thought this was a no go zone and it was time to pull the pin. i suggested we should all go home and I will call the professional tradesman to come and flick the switch and part with a couple of hundred dollars! So it was time to go home and look at the time on the ipod. It was 10.00am in Doha.

I have to get back to my Melbourne time sleep pattern or I will be working the night shifts! Well since I am still awake, its time to fire up the pot and start dyeing the fabric.

Blogging off for the moment. (6.00am in Doha!.)

Blossomed

Every journey to the airport always has its dramas. Ours was traffic. When we were on the way to Tullamarine to send Sarah off to Doha, news came on the radio that there was a bad accident on the freeway. A 40 min journey was looking like 2 hours. This gave me a lot of time to reflect on this journey.

It took me back to a time when I as a student going to London to pursue my tertiary studies. Similarly, my parents took me to the airport in their 1957 mission brown volkswagen (that's another story) It was my first journey to a far distant country and be on my own for the first time in my life even though my sister and brother were there. I was leaving the comfort and security of my parents. I remembered I had a T-shirt printed "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" Filled with trepidation. I moved on.

Yesterday evening, my mind was having a cerebral party. I felt so happy for her, so proud of her, so privileged to have her and so on and so forth. It is settled in my heart that this was indeed a milestone in both Sarah and our hearts. The child has indeed blossomed. What a spectrum of colours in her life! One undoubtedly she will never forget, even though we did miss another Char Siew rice dinner, on route to the airport, and settled for a Double Bacon meal at Hungry Jacks.

More shopping was to be had at the airport. An OS adapter and A short history of everything for Sarah to read during the 14 hour flight was good prescription. As I type this, it's around 6.10am in Doha and it's lunch time here. This reminds me to feed the Koi fish. They must be starving.

Gene is feverishly filling his forms for his travel to Doha in September and I this he is going through the same emotions. Have to remind him to get back to his home and have some time and a meal with his parents.

Now it time for me to put on my heater tradesman hat and get over to my parents house and see why their gas heater is not working. I think this tradesman wilprobablele call a rea one and fix the problem.

Well, I'd better go and feed the fish and myself.

A full inquiry and report of the heater problem will be made available soon.

Blogging for now.

Friday is flagging day

Isn't great to come to the end of the week where you know that the weekend is just another working day! Emmm not sure about that! All the jobs are like ducks in a row ready to be flagged off. More change, more flagging, for changes and more flagging. I hope some one is on top of this.

This Friday is also a flagging day – to flag Sarah off to Doha! Ha ha. Why am I happy I hear you ask? She's not going anywhere else except to a DO work at a HAppy place. Gees this sounds really bad. So bad I ought to have erased it, but then no one else ould know.

Opps more changes are coming and I have to flag them off.

so I shall flag this blog off for now.

Dragged into the 21st Century

I have always thought that I am an early adopter of all things new. But after today I discovered that the more I know, the less I really know. Which proves a point about learning. When we learn something new, we will discover that there is much more surrounding what we've just learnt. Hope this makes sense. It did in my head. Not sure when it's typed out.

Today I have discovered how to Skype. This is not new by any measure but it is new to me. It sort of contradict my 'early adopter' mentality. Maybe now I am a not so early adopter. Well I suppose I have also discovered that need is more important than want. So I needed to be able to communicate with Sarah in Doha and wanted it to be FREE. Skype is good. BUT in the back roads of Xinjiang in China, I am not too confident in getting internet. I can always carry a satellite dish and a generator or maybe I just have to pay and use the cell phone.

Tough day ahead with a pile of work to complete and ensuring I get home in time to take Sarah and Pauline off to Pacific House in Richmond for some great tasting Char Siew (roast pork) before Sarah leaves for Doha. Char Siew is not available in Doha. Not even vegetarian style.

Well the sun is about to rise and this bat better get back to the roost and hang up his glasses and get some zzzzz.

Blogged out for now.

While I was waiting

Why am I waiting? Just did another round of author's corrections. I did tell the client that I will be ready as soon as I finish the changes to the corrections to the alterations to the author's changes!!

It's going to be a long day. I can see the clear sky outside my window but I do not know if it's blowing a gale. Well, I could look at the trees. I am not where I wish to be.

Better blog off for now… changes beckon.

I could have blog all night

Just cannot leave the blogging bizo alone. It's 2:10am and I have just finished a financial report. I should be in bed but I am just too happy to learn that both Sarah and Gene are going to Doha. I am happy not just because I will have my house back, ok may be a little, but more so (the truth) they are doing something they are passionate about and in Doha! Could be in Footscray and I'll still be happy, but not as happy as in Doha.

Well I suppose that it is all happenning and all we can do is go along for the ride except for the Koi fish, Zeus and Clio the pugs and Herman the rat!

It's really late now and I really ought to be in bed.

So blogzzzzzzzzzzzzzz for now

An addiction

I find myself a day after setting up this blog that I am addicted to this. Positive side is it may improve my typing speed. Down side is I am not doing any work. That is bad. However, I think it is therapy for me and also let my friends know my weaknesses. They may help me with the work!

So blog for now

Marco Polo made a head start

"When a man is riding through this desert by night and for some reason -falling asleep or anything else - he gets separated from his companions and wants to rejoin them, he hears spirit voices talking to him as if they were his companions, sometimes even calling him by name. Often these voices lure him away from the path and he never finds it again, and many travelers have got lost and died because of this. Sometimes in the night travelers hear a noise like the clatter of a great company of riders away from the road; if they believe that these are some of their own company and head for the noise, they find themselves in deep trouble when daylight comes and they realize their mistake. There were some who, in crossing the desert, have been a host of men coming towards them and, suspecting that they were robbers, returning, they have gone hopelessly astray....Even by daylight men hear these spirit voices, and often you fancy you are listening to the strains of many instruments, especially drums, and the clash of arms. For this reason bands of travelers make a point of keeping very close together. Before they go to sleep they set up a sign pointing in the direction in which they have to travel, and round the necks of all their beasts they fasten little bells, so that by listening to the sound they may prevent them from straying off the path." ---- Marco Polo

After all these years, today we have air travel, experienced guides and travellers cheques and 4 stars, well 3 and a bit stars, accommodation.

Pauline and I will be traveling from Xian to Kashgar from 13 September to 6 October. We will be travelling on a route steep in history and a community that has no need for the internet and blogging! We'll soon know when we start to look out yurts (stone huts, see above) with satelite dishes. But I know that Pizza Hut is opening its 148th store in China's westernmost Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. They must have a phone line. More when we actually arrive. Now it's just speculation. They may have a great big shopping town in every village.
So blog for now

I hear the question… why?

Well, my daughter, Sarah, talked me into blogging. As she heads off to Doha and Pauline and myself to the Silk Road, communication between Xinjiang and Qatar is going to be a challenge, albeit, the mobile is always an easy option.

As I type my first post, I am still struggling with your question why me blogging I didn't know what blog stands for until I found the courage to ask Sarah. Now I know - it's short for weblog. Somehow I believe it will all fall into place and everything will look slick and professional…one day. By then the world and its technology will have moved on. But history is good.

I will have to learn how to post images and spend night tapping out words to form sentences that mean something. Given my typing speed is at a meteoric 40 minutes, I will be relying on the good 'ol bullet point.

So until I have someting relevant to write, so blog for now.