Last weekend, we brought little Ayra back to my wife’s hometown at JB & Singapore. Ayra now has officially used her passport for the 1st time! We originally planned to go back on the Malaysia National Day weekend, but decided on an earlier date because we anticipated that there’ll be a massive traffic jam on the North-South Highway.

As usual, upon entering Singapore I’ll start to notice the difference in the general atmosphere of the 2 countries. It’s not hard to see that Singapore is generally much cleaner and organized and I sometimes pick out small things that made the differences.

The dividers, overhead bridge columns, sidewalks materials, etc are usually cleaner and painted/maintained properly. Compared to JB’s dirty, peeling and mouldy materials, this affects our view when we’re driving around in Singapore roads. Also the bushes, trees and plants along the roads are also well taken care of.

I also notice that Singaporean cars are a lot cleaner. Of course, they don’t have a lot of old junkyard-worthy vehicles like we have here, but most of the cars there gave me the impression that Singaporeans clean their cars several times a week.

Also, due to the strict traffic enforcement, they don’t simply park their cars in any available space on the roadside like we do. This eases the traffic flow along small lanes and avoids the disorganized look of illegally parked cars.

When you come back to JB, you’ll definitely notice the mess as soon as you pass through the checkpoint after the Causeway.

Nowadays me and the wife don’t go out much. We could just hang out at home watching little Ayra do whatever she does. Even watching her sleep makes us smile. Looking at her having a good rest makes us realize how much joy she has brought into our lives. The feeling is evident throughout the household… whenever we bring Ayra out from the room, my parents and siblings will go “Ayraaaaaa!” and everyone wants to kiss and hug her. My youngest brother who is 8 spends the most time with Ayra. He’ll play around with her, make her watch old reruns of Transformers, check up on how much sleep and milk she’s had for the day.

Could this be the reason why firstborns are usually spoiled? Maybe. But I don’t care… Ayra deserves all the love and attention!

If you guys regularly use Oracle Database 10g in your XP machine, then you’ll definitely realize that Oracle DB tends to leave shit lying in your system when you uninstall it. These remnants of the database installation will sometimes create problems with your XP system. Leftover registry keys will cause problems when you’re reinstalling Oracle DB. Leftover path variables sometimes wreak havoc on your normal command prompt utilities like ping and telnet. Leftover files and directories will make it harder to install a new database using the same Oracle Home name.

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We took Ayra out today. First we went to Avenue K (the shopping complex right in front of KLCC) because we wanted to get some toys for Ayra and a friend’s son. The Toys R Us over there was having a clearance sale of up to 70%. But the store was small… one of the smallest Toys R Us I’ve ever been in. They do seem to get smaller and smaller eh? Or is it because we’ve grown from being the excited little kid browsing through the nirvana of toys.

I was hoping to see some all-out Transformers promotion, but upon reaching there, it’s not hard to imagine why they needed a clearance sale. Avenue K was deserted, and there were a lot of empty shop lots. Probably not a very good idea to open a mall so close to Suria KLCC huh? If people wanted a cheaper alternative shopping mall, Ampang Park & City Square is just close by.

Anyways, we got Ayra a rattling-music-making thing, and a xylophone for our friends’ kid. Ayra needs all the toys she can get, as she’s just learning to interact with items in her hands. We wanna keep her occupied without the need for our presence.

Right after Avenue K, we went to Ikano Power Center. There was quite a bit of traffic jam on the way there because of the Saturday workers going back from work. The parking lot in Ikano was also quite stuffed. As usual when we get there, we’d shoot straight for Brands Outlet. It’s sort of a Reject Shop/FOS kinda place, but with more baby stuffs. They’ve got Osh Kosh clothes, Levi’s Kids, Guess Kids, GAP Kids branded clothes. And they’re quite cheap too. Sleep suits that cost  RM50-60 would be just RM20 or less. And they have a lot of variety too.

We also went to Aussimo to get wedding presents for 2 couples. We got a pair of bathrobes, and a pair of towels. Sorry, no high-grade crystal tableware or exquisite bedding sets for you guys, we’re not rich enough yet.

What makes me happy is that Ayra behaved well throughout the day. We’re gonna bring her out more often. See the world!

To make up for the lack of any thoughts coming out from my mind, I’ll start on reviewing my old favorite albums. But I’m not ancient enough to review albums from Led Zep, Jethro Tull, etc though…

Listening to the newer offerings from the Chilis, I really felt that they’ve mellowed down a lot. However, they’ve still got their grooves. Anthony Kiedis still sings in his vocal’s sweet spot. Frusciante still has that element of funk in his chops and emotion in his solos, Flea is still using his bass like an extra limb and Chad Smith (who I think looks like Will Ferrel) still complements all the guys while knitting the sounds into a cohesive piece of music.

BSSM opens with The Power Of Equality, a great song to introduce the album. A cool funky riff accompanies the steady beat of the song. Almost halfway through the album, we’re treated to an ultra-mellow depressive song, I Could Have Lied. I especially liked Frusciante’s solo in this song. It’s not blazingly fast or flashy (which he is able to pull off), but the raw emotions that pours through his solo really pierces through.

And the album also features the hit songs Under The Bridge and Give It Away, two songs of the opposite style, but still clutching on the trademark RHCP sound.

My favorite songs: Funky Monks, I Could Have Lied, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Apache Rose Peacock, My Lovely Man.

This coming Monday I’ll be going away to Jakarta for 2 weeks. I’m gonna be having a hands-on training on the airport system that my company develops for the Soekarno Hatta International Airport. Apart from that, I’ll also be doing some documentations on the Standard Operating Procedures for future references. There are already 2 guys from my company that are stationed there, so I’m gonna just tag along with one of them throughout the 2 weeks.

I’m very sure that I’m gonna miss my 1 3/4 months old daughter… I just saw her smile on cue for the first time this morning, so probably I will miss most of her early smiling efforts. Her first exercise on social skills. Her transformation from a grumpy & stressed-looking baby into a cheerful, laughing, happy child.  Considering that she’s about 6/7 weeks old, losing 1/2 months of her presence seems a very big deal!

I’ll also be missing my wife, especially because we’ve never been apart ever since we got married almost 2 years ago. 2 years? Wow… it only hit me that it’s been that long when I see it in writing. Still feel like we just recently got married.

Back to the Jakarta story. I’ll be working on 12-hour shifts, and I probably got time to walk around and see places on off days. As of what to buy from there, I have no idea. I’m not a shopping type of guy. But I was told DVDs are dirt cheap there… maybe I’ll work on my list of movies to buy…

I found this somewhere. A fake ad, but very funny :) This could probably turn into a fad with all the crazy Paris Hilton fans in Japan. I bet they’ll try to stuff crabs down their skirts like the doll too!

it’s been about 3 weeks since Ayra Hanna popped out (literally)… apa yang dah bertukar dalam life aku?

• Tido - memang tak cukup. kalau dapat one stretch of 4 hours memang kira beruntung gila. nasib baik masa muda aku dah cover dengan tido yang teramat banyak.
• Time - memang tak sempat nak buat banyak benda sangat kat rumah. takde dah masa nak tengok movie, keluar jalan-jalan, surfing semua. banyak aktiviti jaga budak kecik pulak.

Kat ofis aku asyik teeeengok je gambar anak aku kat wallpaper PC. patut la sebelum ni aku perasan orang2 semua suka sangat taruk gambar anak diorang jadi wallpaper. boleh buat hilang rindu rupanya.

Ayra dah makin berisi sikit sekarang. and kulit dia pun dah makin cerah & pink sikit. kaler kuning dia dah makin hilang. rambut lak makin lebat… memang comel gila hehe…

Even though penat/habis duit/takde masa, the feeling of holding your own child and looking into her eyes is priceless. Tambah dengan bau ‘baby smell’ dia, lagi la extra priceless! baru aku faham kenapa parents akan sayang anak diorang walaupun anak2 tu jahat macam setan.

yesterday (Friday 20th April), i witnessed the most amazing thing that has ever happened in my life. i saw, with my own eyes, the birth of my baby girl.

her due date is actually on the coming Sunday 22nd April, but my wife had been feeling regular contraction pains the whole Thursday. it was still manageable as she still had the time to walk around and she made me bring her to a nearby mamak stall coz she felt like eating Thosai for supper. right after that, i brought her to the hospital to follow up on her contraction pains. luckily we brought our packed hospital bag with us, because after the checkup by the midwife, we were told that my wife had to be admitted to the ward immediately. my wife’s contractions continue to occur throughout the night.

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have you guys ever had the same dreams that come to you once in a while? people say that dreams are just a sandbox for your brain to play in, but when a particular theme keeps repeating over and over again, surely there’s some real-life events that trigger them, no?

of course, there are scientific evidences that say your dreams are a manifestation from whatever experiences you have in your life. but let’s keep those things for Freudians to analyze. we mortals can’t even comprehend everyday menial things that happens, much less something as abstract as dreams.

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