Oregon Coast 2009

Peacock Lane 2009

busy busy…

Sien…always busy busy…issues issues…non stop one wor…how come?!
No luck lar…must pray harder already…
Hope issues go away soon…then I can have a relax X’mas
Bo song one la this job…but what to do, stuck here already lo…
Hope hope no next time la…Else need to find other “hole” to hide already.
Fortunately that day Friday things come back ok, so one stone is released and can be put aside.
More bo tao sui punya issues need to solve still leh?! cham cham…
Sien…mau fat lan cha already la…?!

To MS: All the best ah will find you out yamcha when back M’sia and get together have fun.

New Papa and Mama

TO New papas and mamas:

Congratulations!

Really missed home sometimes. I hope to see “lui lui men” grow bigger closely. But, I guess when I back home, “lui lui men” will be able to crawl and play around. Will be missing some of their sweet and cute grown up experiences.

When I left, one lui lui still in mama perut, one lui lui already delivered but still dunno how to cry yet, and look so small when carry her
Now, one delivered safely and under papa and mama’s big umbrella and one already getting smarter and knew how to cry to get attention or yao yao

All the best to you all and must always send photos for me to see, or videos
Let me know if needed anything.
Haha…

Been busy…

Hai…really been busy for the past weeks. Working late, working during weekends… Things had been sad and stressful for me…demotivated, like issues are non-stopped. Settled one, another come, settled that one, another thing come, just like pacific oceans wave, strong and non stop…
Worst, what I did the whole day until late night, only survive that few hours and got banned the next morning. Hai…but usual lo, not the first time feeling dissapointed…and worst, need to re-do and needed on that day itself again… hhhuhhh….tiring…

Now things shines up a bit, but my guess,…more to come. Hope just drizzle and not thunderstorm, else I’ll need to be fireman on drifting sampan boat again with just one broken wooden paddle…

Fortunately and HOPEfully I think I’ll have a relaxing Thanksgiving this year which earlier I thought that I’ll be busy again and needed to spend time in office again :> but then relaxing Thanksgiving then might be busy X-mas…Hope I get to spend time and do some Thanksgiving shopping since I never really did, involved in long queue at night just to wait the store to open to grab nice real cheap and good deal.

Everytime with this feeling, keeps me feeling I don’t want to be here longer. Or should say I don’t belong here, what am I doing here for 6 years?! And this is not what I wanted. So, if you have better “kang tau”, must let me know….

And to all my friends out there, all the best and take care! Just “fat fat lou sou” only..

巾帼英雄

巾帼英雄, another nice TVB Hong Kong series
A lot of issues and quarrels, but it’ll keeps you thinking of how they going to resolve the issues…
I also like it because the characters are quite smart …

Oregon Zoo

This is a very nice Zoo. Personally I like this zoo quite a lot compared to San Diego Zoo (SD Zoo, I went in 2006). Since it’s Oregon, it very natural and very refreshing walking in here. The zoo is very organized, separated into Great Northwest, Pacific shores, Primates and Africa. Each of them will have separate themes such as Amazon flooded forest etc. The display and exhibits window covers quite a large view and can be seen from a big angle But one downside might be just that the types of animals are not as much as what San Diego has. Overall, I like it as it’s simple and nice and not much of repeatation and can be more up close and personal with the animals there.

The fare for adult is $10.50, car park is $2, there’s a fall package for $15, included $5 food and train loop. I didn’t take up the fall package as I wasn’t planning to stay too long there for the meal and the zoo train loop, since it’s not too big of a zoo, for me I feel I can do it on foot whole. But, if I do have the time, I might go for this, get to sit inside the train, loop around and have a nice lunch there.

If you are going sometime now, get gloves, hat and a thicker jacket. It appears that it’s more cool there
This is the official website.

http://www.oregonzoo.org/

zebra

polar bear! very BIG!

Fall…

It’s fall here currently. These pictures are taken while I walked around my neighbourhood.
Temperatures are pretty low recently, about 10+C and 4-5 at night

lovely...fall

another one...

Photo taken from street

Cinnamon Rolls

Yummy Yummy….
This time I challenged something more tough, “Cinnamon Rolls”. Starting from the dough making until baked

I got my recipe from food network as usual
This specific one is by Paula Deen:
Here’s the recipe.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/cinnamon-rolls-recipe/index.html

And don’t missed the video, it’s really helpful.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/cinnamon-rolls2/video/index.html

Hmmm…I tried 2 times, first time I’ll give myself 50%, second time 85%… First time the bread was too dry and stiff. I think the yeast might not resolve well enough. Second time actaully is a lot better, but cinnamon is not as nicely as last time, might be I didn’t used melted butter for the dough just before I put the cinnamon and brown sugar onto it.
I skipped the last steps, the glaze.

the dough

in pan

another pan

after baked

Long wait…

5th September
This time back home, I had a LONG wait in Hong Kong airport I reached there I think ~6-7am, and stayed until my flight back Penang at 4pm
Thus, to spend the time, I had 2 meals in the airport. First meal is at 王府”King’s Palace Congee and Noodle Bar”. We had 水饺汤面and 炸酱面. It’s a bit plain compared to what we had in M’sia. But the 水饺is nice. Next meal is at 阿二靓汤, a better restaurant. We ordered some dim sum and a fried mee. Quite nice meal, slightly a bit expensive compared others since it’s a restaurant, but worth a try
When I’m back to US again on 18th September, I dropped by 百乐潮州 for 贡丸面and fried rice. The 贡丸面 not bad

After spent so much time in airports, actaully I still personally like Changi (Singapore) Airport more. Changi Airport, I’ll have a lot more stuffs to try around, shop or even walk around. I can take up their cultural tour if the timing is correct. I did took the bus tour for FREE once, taking us out and around Singapore some popular cultural places like ChinaTown, Little India etc. It’s a very good way to promote tourism. And I also like to take my time to try the OSIM leg massage for FREE too. They also decorated the Airport nicely, with some theme, some spot has very nice place for you to relax, looking at the orchid and running waters. I can online FREE even without my laptop. I can play some games too.

But, Hong Kong Airport is catching up. Last time I remember there’s no WiFi or spot for you to online. Now, they have it.

If to put all the international airport I visited in a list, this will be in order with 1st at the top.
1) Singapore Airport
2) Hong Kong Airport
3 and 4) San Francisco Airport/Los Angeles Airport
5) KLIA

王府

王府

阿二靓汤

阿二靓汤

百乐潮州

I’m back…

Finally I’m back to Portland again.
It’s been a very busy 2 weeks back home holidays!
So many things needed to be done…and a lot of driving around…
Also try catching up with all the nice foods too…

When I’m on my way back here, I dropped by LA and paid my friend a visit for a day or 2:)
I visited her future home and it is really nice and to me it’s not that expensive too, ~$360k for a landed property with 2 1/2 storeys high. Compared Penang my condominium already needed RM250k for just 900sqft , not to mention the landed properties in Penang. I’m not converting the $$ as, if I work here and I work in Penang, it’s almost the same number, just in different local currency (actaully, US I guess I will get higher based on standard price).
So, if I work here, and I buy a good car, it’s going to be $20k, a landed BIG house for $360k, every week groceries expenditure of $30, a branded shirt for $20, a branded pants for $20, a branded slipper for $10, broadband $55 or so, full tank for a midsize car (16gallon, ~$2.6/gallon) $40……
If I’m in Penang, and I buy a very cheap small car (just like the one I have last time), RM28k, a condo for RM250k, every week groceries about RM100, a normal shirt for RM40-50, a normal pants for $90, a normal slipper for RM25, broadband+ telephone RM98, pumped my car for a midsize car(44L, RM1.8/L) RM80…
All are normal, small here….compared branded and BIG…

I know US tax is high, but…to some extend, I’m ok with it, as, if you are out of work, you get subsidies, I don’t. You want to travel, you have highways FREE, I need to pay toll. Your fuel price changes all the time, mine adjusted when it’s up and stayed high even the crude oil is low, only once or twice they’ll bump it down by a bit. And we recently get downgraded from using Ron97 to Ron95, we still need to pay 5cent more for the Ron75. So sorry to mother earth, life is really bad.

Maybe I’m not fully part of here yet, so few times short term staying here, this is what I noticed.

What the heck

Really pissed me off.
8 Sept 2009
We’re driving our car from Ipoh back to Penang and looks like as the day before, there’s “operasi” for speed trap at Taiping, both way (to north and to south). It’s pretty common for speed trap at Ipoh. So since we’re good citizen , we don’t exceed the speed limit which is 110.
But!! We were asked to stop by the side at the road block, and here comes the “drama”!
In disbelieve, we wind down our car window and here come the police officer, telling us that they’re doing operasi there because at Kuala Kangsar there’s death cases, and we’re over the limit “123″!! (Nice number, isn’t it?). He kept telling us our picture is very nice and if we want, we can take a look at Kuala Kangsar. Ok, we accepted the “faith” and thought this time sure RM300 fly away already lo. But!! he then say, “RM300, boleh bayar mana mana, macam mana, nak saman? mau tolong?!” (let me translate, “RM300, can pay at anywhere, How, wan summon, or wan help?”). What the heck! Then I knew already, it’s near to their Raya and they want coffee $$. We straight away say “NO, give me saman!”. He then take a look at the driving license and pretend writing things down and he say “ok, we’ll post!”. Another weird part, if they already stopped our car at the road block, they’ll give us summon on the spot already (Malaysian Style). But, this one he say he’ll post and asked us to leave. So, this is very obvious! They just want to get coffee $$ from us! Really what the heck~!!

I already have a bad impression when I come back here, and with this thing happened, it’s giving me even bad and unforgettable memory!!

Another thing is H1N1. When I back this week, no health declaration or anything is needed! I thought things are worst the weeks before I came back, and suddenly looks like even the least effort of health declaration is not needed to be filled up. And what are they doing to prevent it?! I really no idea. When I have my transit in Hong Kong, for those going out to Hong Kong, they still need to fill up the health declaration form. I agree that health declaration form doesn’t serve a BIG purpose in H1N1 prevention, but it’s a very small effort or least time consuming process. If there’s cases of H1N1 detected due to someone just back from some flights, you can at least used this to track down the possible infected people or informed them of the possibility of them getting infected and warn them to stay 7 days in quarantine themselves.
That’s why when I’m here, I’m more worried. People wear masks are pretty common here, which is expected.
With their work “efficiency”, I think it’s better you take care yourself is more effective.

Finally I’m back…

Oh, finally I’m back in Penang

Programming…Software…

Recently, I’m doing a lot of software programming. C++ or Python
Curious? When designer become programmer? Haha… really pain leh, last time perl also didn’t really went too deep and not widely used by me, suddenly C++ then Python somemore.

Everything started to pick up with simple coding and when it went well, Bravo! Feels great, but, it’s ever lasting

Then come the hard part. Hard part is no basic, and start to pick up from a well built and available tens of thousands lines of coding. So, understanding what they’re writing and what they’re doing step by step and understanding the syntax at the same time, hard … hard
This function called the other function and called another function and soon, I’ll be lost in to whole ten thousands of lines of codes. I really need a lot blank paper to skectch around and write down the lines and draw whatever I can understand to make a clear picture of how things going.

Now, after 1 month, it’s becoming better and better….but life is tough again, when I need to write something which I totally have no idea how to do, what bit to set, how the flow should work etc. Eventually I need to read through Python and understand it then convert it into C++ and see if it works. Pening, pening!! My head is spinning … …
Am I going to get paid and recognize for this, hmmm… I doubt that… hai…life is hard…

But anyway, it’s a good experience. Maybe good for my Resume next time too, hor hehe…At least one more item or road to go next time :>
Maybe I can start do something fency on this blog too … If I want to spend the time on this…

And slickdeals.net have job vacancies for blogger
I always like the idea of work from home, running small business from your own home or maybe do a free lance work.

OK, means now I need to be hard working in my coding…

Going back …

Will be going back for home leave soon…
But it’ll be a hectic one I guess, coz so many stuffs to get done.
Hope if got time then can catch up with you guys