Novel November

November is "the" month of a novel new beginning for me.  After 8 years and 9 months of working for "K" Line Pte Ltd, I finally left the company - which I should probably have done 3 years ago.  But through the graces of the forces that may be, I had remained with "K" Line and rode through the worst period of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the time to disembark from this lengthy voyage has finally come this month.  And yes, I paid my dues already with the various projects I delivered during the pandemic.  As I left this month, I have just completed an e-claims project for the company too.  I left many good ex-colleagues and collaborators who have generously contributed to my development in "K" Line while at the same time I excitedly look forward to the new journey that I will be undertaking with the new company.  

Going Up From Starbucks Guoco Tower One Last Time - Galaxy Note 9

Offbeat October

It has been a very different October for me.  Possibly life changing too - I'll get to that later.  It has been a very interesting month and a lot transpired, I'm not sure how I should start.  How about with a nice cup of hazelnut latte from Baker & Cook Dempsey?

One of The Family's Favourite Bakeries - Galaxy Note 9

Just July - Again

I've used "Just" last year.  Somehow I've ran out of vocabularies by now.  My bread baking spree continued into July with a renewed frenzy.  In all I baked 6 loaves over a span of 3 weeks.

Challah + Ovomaltime = 😋 - Galaxy Note 9

Messed Up May

The month of May started in a somewhat quiet suspense.  It was business as usual with 2 public holidays to look forward to.  However we were on our toes as the number of local Covid-19 transmissions were rising steadily and a series of tightening measures had been announced prior.  And finally on 13th May the government finally pulled the plug and announced "Phase 2 Heightened Alert" which will last till June 13.   Work from home is the default, no dining in and...  no karate.  Home based learning was immediately implemented from 19th May as the school clusters were growing.  Well...  All good hard work reversed in such a short time.  Messed up isn't it?  

Fiery Sunset in Hot Hot May - Galaxy Note 9

The Cat Cafe Bugis Visit

On Sunday we visited The Cat Cafe in Bugis.  The pricing is $16 for 2 hours with a free soft drink per person.  That is quite reasonable actually, when compared to other cat cafes in Singapore. Linc & Lind were excited from the start, the thought of getting up close to furry felines, petting and playing with the furballs got them somewhat impatient throughout the morning.  After a quick breakfast in Bugis, we climbed up 3 storeys in an old shophouse outside Bugis Street.  

Here We Are - RX100 Mk3

Just July

As July comes to an end, the past 3 weeks have been crazy stressful at work.  The e-approval processes I have set up suddenly required urgent fixes because the send mail notification and the approval connectors were decommissioned (deprecated in Microsoft lingo).  The approval connector deprecation is especially hard to swallow, as I will need to re-design 6 of my flows - which I'm still figuring out...  At least, the other 43 are already OK...  I tried parallel branching, which brought down the nesting level to 9, just one over the maximum allowable 8.  I also looked at using Child Flows, but after careful consideration, I will end up with more flows to manage if I use this technique. Not forgetting to mention that this technique also requires premium subscription and a crash course on JSON, so...  nope, using child flow is also out.  The last technique I need to explore is variable initialization.  And I somehow must make this work.  Prior to this "breakdown" there were the usual office drama, politicking and reading between the lines which really, really drained me... man...  I really wish I could just jump ship.  

Along Alexandra Road - Galaxy Note 9

June Cycling Diary

I have been cycling once a week with the missus in the past 3 weeks.  So far we've been to Marina Bay Sands, Gardens by The Bay and Henderson Waves.  From Alexandra Canal Park which is right in front of our apartment, we could go all the way to East Coast Park if we'd like to.  It really is amazing how we can get to experience so many places with our bicycles.  

Stopping by Rodalink Commonwealth to Adjust My Bike's Saddle Post - Galaxy Note 9

Mexican Dinner @ Super Loco Robertson Quay

Last month my wife and I dropped by Super Loco Robertson Quay to satisfy our Mexican food cravings.  It is rather unfortunate that Coyote Tex-Mex at Phoenix Park has been closed for quite some time and replaced with some generic steak house.  So when we knew about Super Loco, we thought that we should give it a try.  

Super Loco is located in swanky Robertson Quay's The Quayside, seated right next to the river for that romantic evening dinner, or a cool relaxing brunch/lunch.  

Inside Super Loco - Sony RX100 Mk3

A Forgotten Bangkok Biz Trip Post

I was wondering what I was going to write about this month.  And when I looked through my photo library I noticed that I hadn't mentioned anything about my September 2017 business trip to Bangkok.  My mind was very much occupied with so many other things back then...

On that trip I actually visited the sunflower garden in Changi airport's Terminal 2 and took a few snaps before departing for Bangkok.  It was a Sunday if I remember correctly.

Changi Airport Sunflower Garden @ Terminal 2 - RX100 Mk3

Equipment Break Down

I did mention in my earlier post that my old VAIO's hard disk finally broke down.  There was a bad sector where I transferred the photos of my Surabaya trip.  I was able to recover up to 1st day only, the rest were from the backup in my phone.

To make things worse, I found out later that my D750 is being recalled because of a faulty shutter unit that causes reflection when taking photos against strong backlight.  It's now sitting in Nikon Service Centre and I have to wait for 2 weeks to get it back...... FYI, NIkon has had a string of recalls as of late anyway (I remember back from their D610, then D800, then their Nikon 1, etc, etc), seems like their engineering department need better engineers.  Well done Nikon...  well done.... (hope you catch the sarcasm there)

Back to my VAIO.. Since only the hard disk broke, the rest of the hardware are still pretty much usable.  The VAIO has a reasonably good graphics card, decent i5 processor and 8 GB of RAM.  Being the hands-on person that I am I decided to salvage the laptop by installing a Solid State Drive and a new Windows 10.

So I disassembled the laptop like follows.

Inside the VAIO

Surabaya Trip - Part 5

Day 2 in Batu was packed with activities.  We visited 3 attractions all in 1 day: Batu Secret Zoo, Museum Satwa & Museum Angkut.  Of the 3 attractions I personally like Museum Angkut best.

During the visit to Batu Secret Zoo I forgot to bring the spare battery for my X-T1 so the camera was flat after less than an hour.  Fortunately my RX100 Mk 3 was still full so I had a back-up camera.

Batu Secret Zoo is a zoo and theme park mixed together. The kids really had a lot of fun there.  Along the way to the top I stumbled upon this great view.

A display showcase inside the zoo - taken with Sony RX100 Mk3 

Surabaya Trip - Part 3

Day 3 of the trip is Chinese New Year's eve.  This is the most important part of the trip as we'll be having reunion dinner later that night.

We started the day easy with a quick breakfast at Pasar Modern in nearby Puncak Permai.  Nothing to hoot about as the food are really quite simple and well..  ordinary....

A signboard in the market - taken with LG G3