We are blessed with a baby boy, Bubu G who is conceived this year and had been growing healthily in Szer’s “stomach”. A dragon boy is right on the way to play with me next year. Yay. That’s one of the happiest moment in my life so far. Preparation for his arrival is ongoing – shopping for the best baby stuffs, collecting hands-me-down stuffs from generous beloved family members, reading up on parenting, psychology, nutrition sciences, early education, toy technologies etc.

Next, the promotion which I dare say, a long deserved promotion. After plying my trade for 9 years in the same company, I finally moved a notch up the rank. The labour I’ve put into my work had gained recognition.

Then, it has to be the completion of my AMII (insurance qualification) which I’ve sacrificed 3 years to complete. It had opened many doors for me to move on from doing motor adjusting to non-motor, which promised better future career development. The completion of the course also got me a fat increment and monetary reward from the company. A win- win situation for everyone, they cover all study costs and in return for a contractual bond and huge monetary incentive for me. Not to mention the double tax deduction they’d get for sponsoring staff education.

People always say that life changes every 10 years. My life had certainly changed a lot this year. I turned 30. Got married before 30 (last December). So far it’s been a good start into my thirties. My wife also received many good things career-wise despite having joined that Dutch oil giant for just a year. The timely career improvement for both of us benefited lil Bubu G. That lil’ fella certainly brought luck to us.

So, I would like to thank The Lord Almighty for all that I have at this station of my life. May the year 2012 (dragon) be a better year for everyone. With a few more days to go, Happy New Year 2012 in advance.

Argh. That means she have the headstart advantage with Bubu. Oh no….. but that’s why they have the “Mummy’s Good” (Mama Hao) song and not “Daddy’s Good” (Papa Hao).

Its good to see competition because that’s the only away to propel forward.

Learning and starting all over again (not literally from scratch but the learning curve is there) is so far so good. With years of experience on motor, picking up non-motor is somewhat easier than from afresh. Hopefully could be able to master the art of loss adjusting is this few years. Thinking of taking up loss adjusting professional studies. Hmm… but thats not so soon. Still got a few more CII papers to complete first. Just gotta take it slowly. Adjusting to the work culture in hand is more important now. How many 10 years do we have in life?

With Bubu G coming soon, hopefully I can find time to juggle for family and studies+career so that I can give my baby son a stainless steel / bronze if not silver or gold spoon when he is born. Trying my best looking for a decent house and environment for my boy to grow up and have a great childhood. A comfortable life is all I want. I don’t need a Lamborghini or Ferrari. They are for jocks.

Spent the whole day at shopping malls – Ikano and 1Utama buying stuff for little Bubu G. There are just so much thing to buy and selecting clothes alone can take up half a day.

Am looking for a good baby cot which is of industrial strength and can withstand the five elements – fire, water, wind, earth and wood. Where can I get such a cot? Graco’s Travel Contour cot seems to be value for money but can it’s matress provide a good sleeping posture for the baby?? The plastic frame looks kinda flimsy. But the good thing is that it comes with a playpen and a diaper-changing panel. 3 in 1. And it’s foldable and can be carried for out station travel.

Milk. What brand is the best ? Scandinavian brands or Down Under? According to Ng’s mom, she’d recommend or prefer Scandinavian due to their scrupulous business practice. Hmm..is that true? China brands are obviously NO.

Toys, for early years, if possible, please get the baby toys of better quality as they may be putting the stuff in their mouth and you don’t want colours to fade and dirty the mouth and stain their tongue.

Whoa, too much to read up about buying essential stuff chapter alone in the parenting bible.

From there, many of us defected to the other camp, the Intel-M$ cartel.

Back then, only the priviledged few could afford Apple computers. There onwards, Apple computers were just another expensive boxy beige personal computer….until the iMac came around 1997/98. That was the start of Apple coming back to our lives.

Everyone were so crazy about Apple and I always wanted to own one since the iMac… although I have been saving to buy one till now. Gosh. The first Apple product I owned was the iPod Nano. It really revolutionised the way we listen to music. Walkman? Discman? So dinosaur….

Fast forward to early this year, I bought the iPhone 4 after seeing the success of iPhone 3 and 3S. My colleague JK and BIL Alvyn were somewhat the culprit, infecting me with the Apple virus. When bonus was announced, I signed-up DiGi plan rightaway just for the iPhone. Did I regret? Yes and no. DiGi line sucks but for the phone, no choice lah. Stuck with the carrier for 2 years.

Just when you almost got enough of iPhone, the iPad came along. Not long after that, the iPad 2 I bought online for my wife arrived from Shenzen.

And here today, the architect, visionary, designer and innovator of all these gadgets that changed our life for the better has passed on. Many of us may not know him personally but to me the iPhone that he brought to us is something so useful and handy in all kinds of situation. Of course thirdparty software developers also played a major role, the Appstore idea that is the brainchild of Mr. Jobs has made it so revolutionary and changed the landscape of software as well as music business.

The BSD-based iOS that runs the iPhone and iPad is considered robust as compared to other mobile OS. The decision to derived their OS from BSD-based Darwin kernel had always been a wise decision.

So, RIP to Steve Jobs the legend. May his soul rest in peace. Let’s hope his successor Tim Cook would do some magic and churn out better innovative products.

Bubu G is conceived and is due next year. Enough said about it. That post a few weeks ago.. ‘A raspberry was formed’ was actually a hint-dropping post to my readers. As I was not allowed to tell anyone not even my closest family members…wtf. Well, I should respect my wife and respected I did. So now I’m finally allowed to break the news to the world. I’m happy for I’m going to be a Daddy. Not Papa or Appa. I’m gonna be a Daddy soon….

My wife’s been asking me what would you want the kid to call you? Daddy of course. She then asked ” why not Papa ? “. I replied ” I like lah !! “. Daddy or Dada. Period.

I call my father Daddy. My kid gotta call me Daddy. I don’t want it to be like Aaron’s case where he calls his father Papa and his grandfather Daddy as my wife and her sisters call their father Daddy. Aaron was so confused at that point of time. He was like ” why can’t I follow what my mom calls this grey-haired guy??!! Why “.

Happy days, and also uncertainties all lie ahead. So, why can’t we just be happy? How many 10 years are there in a lifetime?

Upon seeing us she quickly stood up to welcome us and I can see she was very very very very delighted to see us…. As we are all grown up now. She still remembers The rest of them except yours truly… maybe because I’m so much fatter and I looked very different from then… standard 6. She still stays in Intan Baiduri and teaches in the same old alma mater of ours, SKSJ. Despite being offered a promotion twice in her career, she turned them down just to remain in the once quaint town of Selayang West…. selayang jaya.

Megala said she met her just a few week ago at bakery near Kiddo Mart. Pn Lor asked of Wong’s sister… as the Wong’s are some of the smartest and brightest pupils during our days. She also did her math and said it was some 18 years since we left the school. Gees. I almost cried. I can see that she was very glad to see us.

Sadly we didn’t had the chance to take a group photo… With all the primary classmates there – R. Devindran, Keith, Mee Hoon, Soo Lan, Yeng Yeng, May Lee….. and the lot. Oh, also Ng…. and also his bride Mei Leng, who is a year our junior. Gosh… and the ji muis – Rosalind….erm who else?

The teacher also told us the pupil these day are not so proficient in English unlike us in those days where most of us converse in English. Today, teaching English is harder and she has to resort to learning some Tamil and some Chinese dialects to scold the naughty and noisy kids. English proficiency had definitely dropped tremendously over the years. She also told us she’ll be retiring next year at the age of 56. Man, time flies.

She also spoke of Puan Faridah, our secondary school gangster discipline teacher Cikgu Aznam’s wife. She said Pn. Faridah also agreed with her that English standards these days dropped tremendously. She also related to us how nice were the good old days when teaching was way easier than today.

Hmm… Anyway, she left before the dinner ended and we missed the chance to take photo with her…. Hopefully there will be a chance again as we know where to find her.

Ng at my wedding last year….

So handsome this anak Datuk… today during his wedding..

…and this is his beautiful bride.

Both of us really like the houses we saw. Sorry, I cannot deny how much emphasis I put on this. As we were discussing it this evening with sil and bil, while sze was talking with sil and bil on the build up and layouts of the houses we viewed, I heard fil asked “why do you need such a big house for?” and i was in the kitchen sending my plates to the maid for washing. I’m not sure if bil, sil and my wife responded to him.

I stood there a while in the kitchen pondering that question. Maybe he is right. I definitely need a bigger house to cater to the expanding family… but just how big??

But then in buying house these days, one have to be very kiasu…. I love the area I’m staying now very much. Tropicana, kota damansara…. but with the xx amount of money I can only get a 1,000+ sqft medium-high-end leasehold condo. The houses I viewed, although are a bit far (at this point in time), it is not that far…its just 15-20 minutes drive from my current place. I can get a freehold landed property…. for the same amount of money to get a condo here. Hmm. I’d rather stay farther, far from established convenience that is available here ie. Tropicana Medical Centre, SEGI University, SriKDU private school, The Curve and 1Utama shopping mall, Sunway Giza Mall, Giant Hypermarket…etc. Afterall, I’m so used to traveling all over Klang Valley…. everywhere is near…depending on how you measure the distance. That place will be nearer for my wife to travel to work…

I’d always love to have a big enough house so that I can host my relatives and friends and have a comfy place for their visit and yet have a toy room for the future juniors to play comfortably.

I think I’m going to rough it out and cut corners elsewhere to get that dream place which I love, my wife also loves it…and hopefully the future juniors will also love it. I’ll just work harder… and hustle if I must. I must max out the value I can get from the money. And we’re not talking of the potential appreciation of market price of that place yet. There’s still a lot of room for development.