Father's Day

Father's Day was a few days ago. I did not wish my father 'happy father's day' as he is no longer alive. He went to meet his creator almost three years ago.

I was not closed to my father. To describe how not closed I was to my father let me compare my reception when my father came back from work when I was a kid to that of my old neighbour's children. When my neighbour came home on his 'kapcai', his small children (he had about 10 children) would run to him screaming "Ayah balik, ayah balik' when he was about 70 meters away from his house. He would slow down his bike and stop to pick up the smallest child onto his bike and continued riding. His other children would hold on to the bike running slowly until it reached the house. My neighbour would have a huge, contented, and a happy smile on his face. This happened everyday. For me I did not want my father to come back.

My father never laid his hands on me (except maybe once), never not fed us, but he was a fierce man.

Fathers out there, don't let your kids hate you.

ALLAh is Great

Yesterday I had a near disaster at my house. My 2nd room on the top floor nearly was flooded because it rained really heavily yesterday for about 30 minutes. The water came in from my balcony as the drain hole was covered by leaves, so it slowed the flow of the water into the hole. Luckily there is an attached toilet and all I had to do was 'wipe' the water using that rubber 'wiping' thingy into the bathroom.

What I consider to be even more lucky was that I happened to go home to get my clothes of the drying rack when this happened. I originally wanted to go home earlier before it began to rain. Instead I stayed in my office after Friday prayer to do some work and then it started to rain there. I immediately jump into my car thinking that it had not rained yet at my place. But actually it had started to rain there earlier (the time to get to my house from my office is just 10 minutes). On the way I thought maybe I should turn back to the office as I thought my clothes were already wet so why bother. However, I just drove on to my house.

Despite me being a 'not so good Muslim' aka a 'sinner' Allah made me continue driving on to my house. If I had turned back the water would have definitely gone into the other rooms and eventually down the stairs and into the living room. The aftermath would be worse and the cleaning up would just be tremendous. All I could do was just laugh after the incident.

4th Day of Work

I am gradually spending more time at my office. Work will be piling up soon. Received a phone today call telling me that my Perodua viva Las Vegas voce will be soon....takut

1st Day at Work

Today is my first day at work after a 4-year leave. The 4-year leave was a work related leave, meaning I was doing something which was still work. However, I'm now at home blogging, muahahaha...hampeh

American Chopper

Two Installments

The government announced recently that civil servants' salary will be paid in two installments, the 1st in the middle of the month and the other at the end of the month. This has been the practice in the US for I don't know how long, and perhaps in other countries too. When I was working there part-time my salary was paid that way. So when I heard Pak Lah made the announcement I was quite happy. It gives me some sense of security knowing that money will be coming into my account every two weeks. Then I won't have to worry about how I will survive financially in the next 3 weeks after 2/3 of the salary is gone within the first week of the month.

Nevertheless, I think it will create problems too. One of it is that if you have a lot of payments to make such as loans and other bills probably the first half of the salary will not be sufficient to pay all of them. Thus, you have to divide your bills into two groups, meaning also that you need to make a trip to the bank or other bill paying places twice. This could also mean for some people that you may be charged interest or have a bad credit history if you're late in your payments, especially if the due dates are at the same time. Perhaps the utilitiy companies and banks need to reconsider the due dates they set.

Another problem I see has to do with self-discipline, rational and pratical thinking. Some people might spend the entire first half of the money at once or on unnecessary things with the excuse, "Alah, takpe, 2 minggu lagi duit masuk. Duit tu kita guna bayar bill."

Of course they are other problems too, notwithstanding there are also other advantages.

Whatever it is, we need to have a planned budget every month (which sometimes could be very hard to adhere to)

Mengidam

Currently I'm craving for three things. No, I'm not pregnant eventhough my man breasts look like they are ready for a baby to suckle. The first thing I miss most is churros. The last time I ate churros was in Disneyland, Los Angeles, about 20-21 years ago. I remember buying one at all the churros stands there. It was only USD 1 that time. Don't know how much it costs now.

The other thing that I miss is nachos with jalapeno and melted cheese, yummmy. Yes, I can get it here in Malaysia but it is not the same as the one sold at Great America amusement park in the Bay Area.

Another snack that I miss also is the sourdough bread sold at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. I would make a point to take ride on the San Francisco Cable Car to go to Fisherman's Wharf to hang around almost every weekend when I was staying there. I remember on one trip I was almost squeezed to the side when a fat woman sat beside me. Yup, a majority of Americans are FAT. But before taking the cable car I would stop at the pizza place which sold pizza by the slices at USD 1 a slice, yum, yum. Sigh, I miss those times