Gynae Visit - Nov 2017

Exciting visit, we could see the outline of our boyboy's face. Doc was pretty happy with the checkup which means so are we ;-) At 1.55kg he seems to be small to me but Doc seems satisfied. Meimei received the go-ahead to eat durians but I think we have to be cautious ... we don't want boyboy to get too big too soon haha.

Building Itunes Music Collection

Since I've started buying movies off Itunes, it was natural I started exploring the music collection too.  It's been ages since I've bought a music DVD. I've kinda lost touch with the music scene for years since we got married. 

In recent months Meimei has been sharing with me her favourites of youtube music videos she listens to while working. It was the gently push for me to exploring the 'lost years'. There were many familiar songs which I've heard on the radio and am now on my itunes playlist.

The key factors that brought me to purchase songs off itunes was that I could choose and pay for only the songs I liked. So much better than playing a full album price for a single song and a whole bunch of garbage. The other push was the ability to share my purchases with Meimei.

So I've been scanning through various 'best songs of xxxx years' playlist for good songs to add to my itunes collection. It didn't take long to get to 100 odd songs and I'm sure I'll have many more to add.

Giant Ear Wax

Holy whatchamacallit ... I just dug out a piece of earwax that's close to one and a half cm long from OO's right ear. Wow!

Let's hope that she can listen and follow our instructions better now that she can 'hear' better. Haha.

Getting Back Into It

They finally got me a SSO so I can start working though I'm not really able to work as yet. You see ... my old SSO is gone ... and with it all the database, ERP, configurations, accesses, licenses I've accumulated over the past years.

Some of these I will never get again since they were given only because I was working on those projects at the time. Or my boss had assisted me in escalating for the accesses. Now that this is a new SSO, I would have to start from scratch.

It's tough. Having to work through the red tape to get my licenses was already a chore. I doubt I will replace half or even 3 quarters of my previous accesses and setup. My heart somehow isn't in it anymore. I'm still trying, though some things I just simply let it slip by since I am no longer working on them.

Maybe it's a sign that I should start looking out for my next opportunity. It'll be 3 years in Jan and already longer than most of my other stints. Maybe it's time.

Grohe Warranty & Service

After the initial disappointment of the broken Grohe, we called our ID to 'complain' about the faucet. We had bought this from our ID's partner vendor so I was expecting good quality wares and not something which breaks after a year.

He didn't handle the issue himself but rang the vendor to give me a call. I was glad to find that there was a 5 year warranty after speaking with the vendor. They promise that someone from Grohe will come check on the broken faucet in a few days.

True to his words, a Grohe technician came to our place to survey the broken faucet and replaced one for free. There were no accusations of improper usage nor delays in rectification. I'm pretty impressed with the service and commitment of Grohe. Now this is what you get paying for a premium brand. They have just won me over as a consumer. The next time I need any taps, Grohe is the only brand I will consider.

Breaking A Grohe Kitchen Sink Faucet

The hard plastic channeling the water between the tap swtich piece and water pipe broke after a year. Grohe suppose to last 20 years. They don’t it like they used to ... why are we paying for the inflated prices then? For the brand?

The Sand And The Waves

The last time we were at East Coast OO wanted to play at the beach. I think she is fascinated by the feeling of sand running through her hands. So we granted her her wish this time by bringing her all the way to the water.

She was unsure and apprehensive about the sea initially. This is after all her first touch of the sea. But once she got used to the waves rolling in and out against her feet, she started playing with the wet sand.

She even tried to get me into it by chasing after me with a hand full of the sand. I was in my jogging shoes so I had to run in circles to avoid her. Next time I'm gonna come in slippers so I can join in the fun :-)

Stars And Rewards #2

OO just received her 2nd stars and reward toy. Meimei kinda planted stars quickly so she can justify to OO why she 'received' a full set of pots and plates. Muhahahha ... face saving tact by Meimei. The 2nd stars and reward toy pales in comparison to yesterday's 'gift'.

The Toys Looter

"OO loot my cutleries set toys!" "Its suppose to go to her on MY terms!"

"Hahah how she find them?"

"She come and sainai with me at study table then wriggle around and explore ..."

"What's that mama?"

Meimei was complaining to me about OO raiding her toys. Well to be fair, Meimei left the toys in plain sight under her desk. Once OO got hold of the box of cutleries there was no prying them off her. So Meimei unwittingly gave up her entire stash of pots, plates, cups and cutleries to her little girl girl. Who must be beaming with joy that she was a good girl and hence the big set of toys .... Hahahah

Paragon Playground

Since I didn’t have access to my SSO, there was pretty much nothing I can do. I would go to office everyday to check if there was any progress on my access. I get the same response from my manager and sponsor that they are still working on it. So rather than staring blankly at the four walls I would leave after an hour and spend the rest of the day with family.

It just so happens that OO’s school has an outbreak of Hand Foot and Mouth disease so she’ll be home the next couple of weeks. So I try to bring OO out of the house.

Today we are at Paragon while Meimei is in office finishing up some key work. OO had a great time at the playground and I’m glad we made the effort to bring her out. She was getting bored staying at home. We might need to start planning for other places to visit if my access lock out keeps up the rest of the week.

Someone Else’s Mistake

I discover today that the loss of my SSO was due to a change in the contractor management system. That and my sponsor not reading the email notice on my expiring SSO.

Under the old system, contractors will also receive notifications when their SSO are expiring. I used to get them 30 days before the deadline and then at 14 and 7 days if my sponsor did not act on it. The first thing I usually do when I get it was to chase after my sponsor to renew my SSO immediately for another 6 months.

This time though I didn’t get any emails since this is the new system. Bah ... it seems like a norm for this company to migrate to new systems and lose key functionalities. Why can’t they manage this better? Do they not have expertise to manage such project implementations? It says alot about how they manage projects ... I would think their customers might be suffering from the same failings too.

So anyways it looks like my SSO is gone forever. My manager has kick-started the process to get me a new SSO. Sigh .... is this the end of the road for this place?

OO’s Scooter

We recently took out a Globber scooter which we received for buying a carton of milk from Friso. Initially OO wanted to ride on her own. But that soon changed when she had a bad fall. Well I suppose that’s for the best. We’re not letting her push the scooter on her own till she gets a helmet.

Now she prefers to take the scooter rather than the tricycle when we go down to the playgrounds. I find it easier to push her around too with the scooter. It’s thinner and more nimble.

Losing All My Access

I rarely blog about work these days. Things have been going great at work for the past 2 years. I had just renewed my contract for another year to July 2018.

But something happened today that is going to test all of it. Right after lunch, I lost access to everything. Yes everything ... I couldn't log into the email, I couldn't get into any of the intranet or cloud apps. It's as though I wasn't an employee of the company anymore.

Goddamit .... did I just get fired like how they do it in the banks? You know you're laid off at a bank when you lose access to the systems. But wait ... I'm working in a manufacturing plant. They don't do these sort of thing here do they? Plus they could have just not renewed my contract a few months ago.

It occured to me after half an hour of trying to resolve my 'connection issue' that maybe, just maybe, my sponsor forgot to extend my SSO. They have a policy here where sponsors have to validate and extend a contractor's SSO every 6 months. And if they don't, the SSO is lost forever. But I didn't get any email notification of my SSO expiring. Weird.

Then my mind started running wild ... my SSO is an all-powerful one with many many accesses to databases and applications. And I'm like the only one with in in the whole plant. I practically setup the architecture of the analytics space at the plant. To lose access to all of it would be a horror.

I went to my manager right after and notified her of the issue. They're still working on it when I left early to take a breather. Arrghhh!