Which superhero are you?

I tried this test: http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/superhero/

You are Green Lantern.
Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination.

We have been restructured!

So we have finally been restructured! It was supposed to happen on April 1st, but for some reason April 1st came and went and nobody seemed to have figured out anything, as if the Enhancing Business Model (EBM 3.0) was just an April Fool's joke (didn't help that April 1st was on a Saturday too). But finally on Thursday the bosses worked it out and the staff were told on Friday what would happen to them. Just by coincidence I had Friday off though! So I kept receiving text messages and calls all day!

So what's in it for me? Turns out that I'm having a new boss and gonna be working on different projects. Not that its that much difference since I've been doing some part time projects previously with my new boss and the last few months my efforts have stepped up since one of his own staff quit. But still, it's a change alright, and I'm sure some might have found it quite unexpected. I've been working here one and a half years already and its the second time I'm changing project/boss! Some others spend their entire career doing the same thing haha!

DJ Tiesto is in town next friday! He'll be playing MOS. For the uninitiated, Tiesto is one of the world's top trance DJ's. P doesn't really like his music though, and I must say P knows his trance. I've never actually been to one of Tiesto's gigs before, but I've heard its music and I like it, and so do quite a number of people I know. So I'm probably going with M, though I'm sure that the queue is gonna be ridiculously long. They should do it like 1015 Folsom Spundae nights in SF. Let anybody buy and print tickets out online first. That makes it easier for everybody. Anyhow, if you got any comment's on Tiesto's music, feel free to just shout out!

ducks

Somebody's got a new blog! Finally, after all the resistance! And it's about ducks or something. So here's a tribute to ducks:

Three little ducks went out one day
Fat one, fair one, skinny one too
But the one little duck with the feather on his back
He ruled the others with a quack quack quack!

Down the river they would go
Wibble wobble wibble wobble to and fro
But the one little duck with the feather on his back
He ruled the others with a quack quack quack!

Home from the river they would come
Wibble wobble wibble wobble ho ho hum
But the one little duck with the feather on his back
He ruled the others with a quack quack quack!

Incidentally there appears to be many different versions of this song, as I have discoverd using a google search. But this is the one we sang in scouts. I don't know and don't care much about ducks really, but they taste so good! Especially Johnson Lock roast duck! But ducks are also so fatty and sinful....

Speaking of good food, I had lots of oysters and escargots for lunch at Jack's Place today, yummy! And the day before I tried lunch at Raffles City Bakerzin. Tried the clam pasta which was good, and we had some of those dessert "tapas" too. The one with chocolate and hazelnut and the ginger jelly with lychee were good. There was one tapas we tried with egg white and chocolate sauce and some fruit. The egg white was good, but the fruit made the whole thing so so sour! Eeeks! And this was served in some weird cup/bowl that can't balance straight up and just keeps rolling on the table! Talk about weird crockery, or shall I say rockery?

Anyway, we are undergoing some huge restructuring right now at work, and anything could happen, anytime. Some people are still trying to convince me that nothings gonna happen, and it'll all be the same. We'll see....

Coffee

Why is it that when i comment on my own blog I have to type in some random letters to make sure i'm not a robot, but when I comment on other blogspot blogs I don't have to? Weird...

Anyway, did you know how much effort goes into making good coffee?

"Coffee bushes must be grown in shade -- neither too much, nor too little. A hillside is best -- but it mustn't be too steep. After 3 years, the bushes will start to produce bright-red coffee "cherries", which are picked, processed to remove the pulp, and spread out to dry for days, ideally on concrete. They are milled again to separate the bean, which needs to rest, preferably for a few months. Only then can it be roasted, ground and brewed into the stuff that dreams are quelled with." - The Economist

Wow, bet you didn't know that huh? Next time I have that Blue Mountain or Ethiopian Harra at TCC I know that it's worth what it really costs! But how about those 50 cent kopi at the coffeeshop? Wonder if it requires as much effort to make those? Does it really require 20 times as much effort to brew a $10 blue mountain? I'm not much of a coffee addict, but I always appreciate a nice cuppa gourmet coffee on a cold rainy day..... ;)

Long time no post

Ok, it's been a while since I last posted something on this blog. Don't worry, the blog's not dead yet! It's just that I've been having a lot of strain on my eyes and so I had no mood to use the computer much after staring at a screen all day at work. Anyway, now that I've got a new pair of glasses and a new table lamp, hopefully things will be back to normal! ;)

I was planning on going skating today, but ended up sleeping all afternoon and it started raining when I woke up. Bummer huh? Last night we had a party at G and E's so I came home late. It was a really busy day. Started off with golf lessons at Sembawang, which was really bummer too. I hit 80-90 balls with the 3 woods and they didnt go anywhere at all! Then I realised all i had to do was pull my left arm a little more to the right and voila! 80-100m shots! Such a small difference in your swing makes a big difference in your shot! After golf was huge pork knuckle lunch at werner's oven, followed by promiseworks meeting and dinner at FL's. Then G&E's party when FL's crowd started watching soccer. The berkeley gang of MR, L, KY, SZ, PP, T, YK, S were there, as well as some other familiar faces: K, F, E, KY2, I. The crowd was really interesting, with some ang mohs, some salsa dudes, some djs and some of the dudes I used to see at zouk! And of course, more alcohol than we can finish! :P

Someone at the party kept asking S, the geotechnical expert, all kindsa stuff about soil and rocks. It made me realise that most people out there have absolutely no idea about soil-structure interaction and what you need to do to the ground before you build your building. Anyway, why bother right? Just hire some experts to do the job. Well, for small jobs at least, where there are no real experts, you might end up building your house on some seriously bad ground conditions, and never be able to fix it ever again unless you tear down the house. I guess majority of us live in high-rise buildings, and a majority of those are public housing, so it's easy to leave it as somebody else's problem. More important to make sure you don't have a leaky HDB flat!

Oftentimes I worry that I don't gain enough knowledge at work that is applicable to the outside world. But this week my fears were laid to rest a little. See, my project is now at the stage where the subcon's are doing the architectural finishes such as floor screeding, false ceiling, plastering, partitioning, tiling, raised flooring etc. You don't learn that stuff in school, but my colleague told me that once you handle one big project you should be able to know everything. And to some extent its true. I feel that I can now assess the quality of a renovation contractor's workmanship. Given that everyone has to go through a renovation at some point of time, it's probably a useful skill for myself and for those around me who ask for help haha. As a good civil engineer I always want to make sure everyone's house is built right! ;)