ตาย(dai) liao ตาย(dai) liao!

The title in Thai literally means die die! :P  Well it all happened 2 nights ago, I was doing some electric wiring (with the power off of course) when my son just came in and playfully shouted. "Papa Dai liao, dai liao!"  Wife heard it and looked at me sternly.  I don't know why am I foolishly working on electrical stuff at night so I stopped and played with my son.

The following day (which is yesterday), we were at my wife's friend Nat house having dinner, Nat's daughter Sophia (very good friend of us) came in saw me and then ran to my wife and her mother and shouted, "Didi Papa dai liao!  Mai Mi liao (no more)!".  Wife got so worried that she actually wants me to cancel my flight back to SG on the 30th......

I explained to her that our son must have passed the info to his little friend while playing so stop worrying.  But wife insisted to go pray pray and get some blessings for me. Urgghh....

Anyway, been looking at the horoscopes for my zodia next coming year.  Year of the black dragon and I am born in the year of the dragon too.  It seems I will have bad luck all the way next year till the end. :P  Really "Dai" liao...

11-11-11

Can't help myself in writing something for such an interesting day.  Firstly is all the 1s in today's date.  Next is the missus and kids left this early morning to Keng Tung.  My brother-in-law has a new baby girl and she's having her full month celebration today.  Ah boy a bit reluctant to go at first until he saw the Tuk tuk that came to fetch them....

After that, I was all alone at home and bored.  I 've finished all the house chores before 11 and I decided to take a drive down to Chiang Rai Wat Rhon Kun (White temple).  Yes, its the same temple we visited last month but I wanted to take some photos of it on slides so I took my beast, some film and my tripod.  Dump all my gear in my car and drove all the way to the temple.

On the way saw a very bloody accident.  A man on his bike was hit by a bus and was killed on the spot.  Blood was everywhere....  (Who says today is a lucky day?)  It was at a near the 1st check point.  All the cars were forced to slow down and I took a slight peek (the police was covering the man's body with a black cloth.. and a few meters down the road, the bus that hit him was just parked beside the road, pinned under the front wheels was a bike.  Pretty sad to see this.  Which reminded me to drive safely.

I drove on and reached Big C Chiang Rai at noon to stop for lunch and get some groceries.  The flood situation in Bangkok means a lot of stuff was out of stock in Tesco Lotus in Maesai.  So I was trying my luck to see if its better over here.  And it was indeed much better over here.  I grabbed more boxes of milk powder and diapers for my boy before heading out again.  :P

I reached the temple around 2pm and took my time to load the film and prepare my gear in my car.  It was crowded today.  I actually didn't shoot much as it was a bit too crowded.  Moreover the sun was not in the best direction (should have came in the morning).  Anyway took 2 rolls and stopped.  Drove back to Chiang Rai Central shopping center at around 3.30pm and took a walk in the mall.  Didn't buy anything.  Just window shopping...

Ate my early dinner there at around 430pm.  Tried out the Japanese restaurant, food mediocre but at least its resonably cheap. Started to drive back home at around 5pm.  Traffic was a bit heavy at first but once I was out of Chiang Rai city, the roads where pretty empty.  Since I was all alone in the car, decided to test out the car and drove at 160km/h.  (I think I did more than that :P ).  A bit shiok but guess I won't be doing that anytime soon.

Reached home at around 5.30pm (1st time reach home so fast :P) .  Washed up and starting surfing the web and chatted with some old colleagues over Windows messenger.  Now typing this before switching off.  Guess I will go and read a book or watch some TV before hitting the bed.

Busy month.

I'm back in LOS and the kids are happy to see me.  So's my wife whom seems to be a little worn out from taking care of the 2 little monsters for the pass month.  I will be quite busy this month.  Firstly is to remodel my study.  I had brought back my film scanner and 24" display.  Also my NAS from my home in Singapore.  Which means I could build another station in my studies just for photo editing and scanning.  The mac mini will be the chosen one for this task.  My old PC will take the old monitor and will be used my girl for her games.  (Normally if I start using the computer she would want to play) So its much better for me to have 2 stations at home side by side.  Which means at least I could be doing something besides looking at her playing dressup games :P

Then I need to settle my little shop house.  Still under construction but having its finishing touches.  I might fly back to SG too if time allows (or if I'm bored :P).  Girl's term just ended so its a month holiday for her.  So it will be hectic for us as the kids will be at home.

Some of you also wondered why I have not posted photos recently.  Actually I shot some while in Singapore but never found the time to scan it.  I plan to do it today once I setup the scanner later.  I also tried shooting with the beast and the GIAGANTO 250mm today..... verdict... I think I won't be using it often... bloody heavy and hard to focus with such a small finder mask... Most probably will use it for my landscapes though...

Will post more later.  2 monsters calling me.... :p

4 days in Thailand already.

And it seems bloody fast too :P.  I came back and have spent most of the time surprisingly, not playing with the kids but resting.  I slept more than 10 hrs a day for the first 2 days and the weather here was extremely good.  Cold in the morning and at night while sunshine in the afternoon.  It's also quite dry in the afternoon too!  Just love the weather here!

I think I was lazy for the pass few days as I knew I will be staying here for a longer period. (No more time limits of going back to work!!)  And girl girl is very happy that I am staying for long.  We have played computer games, watched TV and some other physical activities.  Ah boy also seems to be happy that I'm around.. but he's  a bit more shy and always glue to my wife whenever I'm around.. I guess he's a bit worried that mummy going to dump him to me... hehe

Another unusual spot of me is that I have not taken any photos since I came back!  It's only this morning that I took a few of them when my wife was exercising and the kids were fooling around her.  The break was great but there are tons of things to do too... We had just resubmit our marriage registration to the local Amphur and we are waiting for the Nai Amphur to sign again.  Hopefully we can complete it within the week.

I guess I will be able to write more often too... 

Time to move on.

About 3 years ago. (acutally its much shorter then that).  I decided to come back to Singapore to work while waiting for my wife's status to change which at that time, seems like going to be a long wait.

I was lucky to know a friend from my photography Alumnus in SLCC who introduced me into DC to work as an Insite Engineer.. (basically its a Call centre and network monitoring job)

The shift based job allowed me to adjust my off days so I could fly back to Thailand pretty often to see my wife and kids.  Its a hectic job and pretty long working hours (12 hours shift) but it was suitable for my situation.

A lot of things happened during my work here.  Like I actually got my 2nd child, Ah boy in 2009 (and it was a bit unexpected one too.. :P)  And getting some of my team mates picking up in photography (kena poisoned jialat jialat).

There were of couse, many other differences and dislikes about the job environment (as usual if you work in a corporation) but of course, the friendship and companionship outweighs all these differences.  And this is the 3rd point I wished to highlight.  I managed to get to know some great people during my stint here in DC. I'm not going to list them out but I guess you know who you are (if you are reading this post) and I am eternally grateful to getting to know you all :)

Nevetheless, I wish to thank my friend Mr Dog (his nickname) for introducing me to this job so at least I get paid whille waiting for my wife;s status and at the same time,  being able to go back frequently to Thailand to be with my family.

There's an old chinese saying "天下没有不散的宴席".  (All good things come to an end) So I guess its time to move on and return back to where I belong.  Thanks for the 2 years 7 months of fun!