Brain Ooze

Inside that mitten, Gabriel is showing me the finger for forcing him out of the mother’s comfortable womb..

You will notice that some time has passed since the Caesarian section the wife has to endure before I posted it up in the blogs. In between, I have told my story to a few close friends. I told them that I was in the operation theater when the doctors did the operation and I narrated what happened real-time to the wife who is conscious. Most people tell me that I was brave to be there. A lot of daddy’s think they are brave but when the see the amount of blood coming out, they literally faint.

After the wife has been prepped for the operation., she was wheeled in to the operating theater. She went in first cause she was on the wheelchair (not like that she cannot walk, it has to be a dramatic effect – unless someone can tell me why). The nurses asked me in a fast tone whether I want to go in the operation theater. No hesitation – I sure. One male attendant (or is he a nurse, I did not get his details) ushered me into the changing room, dragged out a green scrub and ask me to change into it. He looks rushed so I just put the scrubs over my day clothes.

Then I was given a chair and asked to wait beside the nurses station in the OT. From the station I can see all the operating room.

I had to wait for about half hour before they asked me to go in the operation room. When I went in, the wife was already covered except for the part where they will operate on. She is conscious and I am given a chair beside her head. The blanket was raised at the neck so she could not see anything beyond her neck. I did the narration.

The Doctor came in. I was surprised that he had those rubber boots that the market people uses but in white colour. That was surprising. The doctor went straight to work. Like literally, came in, put on his gown and gloves and reached for the scalpel. That was 10.25am.

He made a cut, then cauterize the blood vessels. He works fast. Like really fast. After that, he did what I think was separating the uterus from the “meat”. One more cut and the nurses are moving around the stomach. One of them was on the top of the stomach and with all her body weight, pushes down on the stomach.

10.31am, the baby came out.

5 minutes and it is all over.

All the while, I am narrating to the wife what is going on and she said she feels nothing down there. Glad for that.

I did notice that when the baby’s head came out, he already started crying even while the body was in the womb. He was not too happy about being forced out of the mother. As the body is leaving the womb, the butt was facing me and I can see streaks of green goo from the butt all the way down the legs. It looked out of place cause the only liquid I see are blood. I think it has to be poop. Yup, baby pooped when he came out.

Which is a good thing I understand, cause that reduces the chances of jaundice. He needs to poop and we were worried that 1) he pooped in the amniotic fluid and eat his own poop since he stayed there for so long. 2) he did not poop and get jaundice.

For the next half hour, the doctor was stitching up the wife and I was asked to leave half way though the stitching.

Did I see Blood? Yup. I don’t think there was a lot of blood loss but blood was everywhere. Looks like a gruesome murder scene.

Did I faint? Nah.. you will need more than that amount of blood to make me faint. Seen worse.

There are many netbooks in this world, some small and cute, some expensive, some are colourful. But this netbook is special, there are many more like it in this world but this one is unique. Because this one is mine!!!

And it came free.

There was some “contest” held by the department, to see who can upload the most info into the internal wiki page. This will help marketing with their FAQ. Whenever the wife went to work on weekend, I followed and typed in a few entries. At the end, I came up tops.

They say I can ask for any netbook with the price of less than USD500. I choose this one because it comes with 2GM SSD. Means I can shake it around. Also, it is a tablet. It also has multitouch.. And I cannot get it in Malaysia.. yet.

What model is this?

ASUS Eee PC T91MT-PU17-WT Tablet White Netbook – 5 Hour Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)

So far, I find that playing flash.. even mafia wars is very slow on this machine. The multitouch is not as sensitive as the iphone. Sometimes, it gets the gesture wrong and instead of scrolling, it resize.

But it is free, it is COOL and I like it. 5 hours of battery life.. yeah.. a bit more than that if I just do surfing. Must try to watch a movie with this.

After years of  “agony”, I have made a conscious decision to slow down my involvement in the RCS. Slow down, to a point of stopping is how I am looking at it. All the years of bitching and being around people that gets on my nerves, they are going to be the past. The history. I have made up my mind and I am going to stick with it. Events last Friday just made the decision more easier.

I have closed the Flag Day account. It is done, I still supposedly have one set of papers with me which I have to send in but the work is done. It is more like returning the stuff that I took from them.

So last Friday, I went to HQ to return the flag day stuff. I thought I can finally close the case with them but I met with the Lady Boss. Started off with small conversation which lead to them saying that I have some time in my hand which I spend doing photography. See this blog and tell me when was the last time I did any photography? Busy with new baby coming and masters. I guess it is hard for the RCS bosses to understand when I say I am busy with my masters. They think I have a lot of time. It didn’t dawn to me that they though if me as so priceless. I made up my mind then.

Lets hope this is the last time I am “quitting”. I am still holding on the chapter post. Any takers?

You remember Ted? Ted d’ Bear? He is the teddy bear that I bought for the wife when I was in US for a week on business trip. He has been sitting on the bookshelf since then cause he was too irresistible for the bed. Well, we have a new use for him.

Testing diapers!

Wife bought some reusable cloth diapers. Those nice expensive ones that acts as good as disposable diapers but re-usable. Wife got these diapers as a “tester package”, a set of 4 diapers that we can try then decide on what brands to get. I vote for the cow prints, but wife will be the final decision maker.

We bought from Baby Pit Stop. She is based in Penang and does COD. Which is a good thing cause you can go to her place and talk to her, get some tips on how to use these things.

From Happy Heinys. With those “prings”, any daddy would be happy, not to mention the heinys..

This is rumparooz.

The famous gro baby.

Bumgenuis

No review on the performance, comfort and quality of the products till we get a suitable and reliable tester.

Dusty old bear.

The in laws came to Penang over the weekend with the nieces and nephew. Cheeky little devils. We brought them to the usual places. Botanical gardens, which I was surprised was doing through some massive renovations. I almost did not recognised that place.

Monkeys in youth park because it was too noisy in the botanical gardens, the monkeys ran away.

butterfly farm.

monorail iguana.

Normally when we head out to KL, we tend to stick to the malls. So we eat in the mall, especially the outlets that we cannot get in KL. Chilis was a usual spot till they have one here in Penang. But in KL, there are constantly new eating outlets opening up that Penang cannot catch up.

This time around, we could not make it to the mall in time. Well, we prefer to hit the mall before 11.00 am when the crowd is still bearable. So we decided to stay away from the malls, for once.

Wife found out about Betty’s Midwest Kitchen from some blog and she said there are ribs and juicy lucy. We had just watched man vs food at that time and the thought of a juicy lucy is just salivating.

This place is strictly non halal and it is so rare to find a non halal western food these days. Go to the malls and it is always halal. I have nothing against halal food, just that I want to know how pork ribs taste like when they are cooked the right way.

My baby back rib sauce was good, the ribs were so fall-off-the bone tender that I think my grandma can eat it. Just that it has a lot of the soft bone parts that may not be appetizing. But I sucked t he bones clean.

Wife’s juicy lucy was good as advertised. Stingy on the cheese but the meat was really thick. If you hate cilantro, like the wife… well you may want to eat something else. The cilantro was a bit overpowering the meat.

We had something called “dog food”, fries baked with cheese and gravy. It was good by itself but it killed the appetite.

We were expecting the place to be full and we were worried not to get a place to sit or having to wait hours outside. We were surprised for a weekend, it was just nice. We got a table and while the restaurant was full, no one had to wait. The customers came in and out quickly.

Finding the place was a challenge as it was a new unexplored area for us and the map on the internet was good till the turning from LDP. We just followed our guts and kept driving. The shop is actually facing the ELITE highway.

As with out luck, we found the place in the first try. Will get the wife to update the location of the place and link to some blogs here.

We also went for kolok mee. The sarawak favourite. People keep telling us there is this kolok mee place in Puchong that taste JUST LIKE Kuching. Then I have to go.

As with out luck, we found it the first try. Wife to update the location

As for the noodles, the taste is JUST LIKE Kuching. But somehow the texture of the noodles was a bit off. It is a but crunchy, I might say. Maybe overcooked or under cooked or maybe the noodles were stored too long. Wife says she read somewhere that the noodles were imported from Sarawak.

Think yong tau foo and you think Ampang. I wanted to meet up with some old classmates and they recommended me to Puchong Yong tai foo which they swear is better than the Ampang one. That is a tall order but I thought it was a good place to start, since it is near where we were staying. Less time traveling, more time chatting.

My friend was trying to tell me how to get there and his directions made no sense to me so wife decided to google the place and found it. Apparently the place is so famous, it is on the top of the google list. Try it. It is in Batu 14.

Again, found it in the first try. Wife can really read maps.

Wife loves this place and so do I. They put pucuk manis in the soup. What you call the vege in pan mee. Wife loves those stuff. The fried yong tau foo, very crispy and light. Not hard like the ones we normally get. Fluffy is another word I would use. The place is PACKED. Six of us wallop 80 bucks worth of yong tau foo, sat there and chat from 7 till almost 10.. when they are closing.

When you arrive there, take a seat and know the table number. Head down to the counter and pick the vege or things you want stuff. They will stuff the vege / tofu AFTER you pick them. Also, knowing cantonese would be good as I have no idea what they were asking. Apparently they were asking how many tou foo or how many wan tans I want. Not sure what I ratted but who cares. Food came and we stayed on.

Was in KL last week and took a day off on Monday to meet up with the PIKOM pals. Well, one of the main reason I went down to KL was to meet friends. Saturday was meeting up with the ex MMURCS friends and Sunday was with the coursemates, or whatever that is left of them. Before you start telling me how dedicated I am, just enough for me to say that I was feeling guilty. Some of them came down to Penang during chinese new year and I could not be around to meet up with them. I get calls that they are in Penang when I was in Kuching. I felt that after all these years, I should at least go back and meet some of the friends.

I do now know that Puchong has a yong tau foo shop and I think it is better than the ampang one.And we can argue this till the cow comes home. But I feel that the crispies (fried yong tau foo) is much more lighter and crunchy, not hard, light and crunchy. Need to know how to get there? just google puchong yong tau foo. Wife likes it because they have the pucuk manis in the soup. She likes the vege. Actually when my old classmates asked me to meet him at Puchong Yong tau foo, wife googled it and it is there in the front page.

Since I am taking Monday off, people in the office are curious why I took one day off, or why I bothered to go to KL on such an odd timing.

I told them I am going down to KL to get baby stuff. See the shock on their faces and then told them that the wife is due end of June. Yup. I am going to be a daddy soon. Most people are shocked because my wife works in the same office and they did not notice anything different.

The main reason I go to KL is to hit IKEA for the cot bed. We looked around for cots and Ikea’s SNIGLAR is the cheapest at RM165. There are also things like high chair which are cheap in IKEA.

While reading the papers in KL, the KL edition, we stumbled upon a baby product warehouse sale.. in PUCHONG! What a co-incidence. The brand is “My Dear”. It is not common but I see it in the Kimberly Street shop that sells baby stuff. It was a mad house but because a lot of preggies, it was very organised. A lot of people not no shoving around. People were polite, they give way. Just not Malaysians you know.

It is My Dear’s warehouse. You see what you like, tell the staff what you want and they will give you a chit for the item. Once you are satisfied with the purchases, pay at the counter and they will give you a receipt. Take it next door and someone will collect your receipt, tell the workers the item that you wanted and slowly, they will bring it forward. Assembling service provided

Got this for RM188

Car Seat for RM190

Brand new.

After stacking it in the car, adjusting the seats, with the IKEA stuff, it was JUST nice to fit in the small Smart Car. I should have taken my mum’s offer to use their bigger VIOS but I was stubborn. Well, it almost didn’t make it back but it did. So we are happy.

These are the night shots of the goddess of mercy at Kek Lok Si Temple. Getting there is a challenge. The road up to the temple is mighty steep and because of the traffic jam, I need to stop the car on a slope and get it going again. A lot of handbrakes. When I arrived, the car smells of burning rubber. In fact, most cars smells of burning rubber. When I smelled burning rubber, I thought there goes my clutch plate. But when I smell burning rubber on most cars, then I am a little bit more relieved. A little bit because there is the challenge of going down after the shoot.

We arrived around 7.30pm and the jam was still tolerable. We were able to drive into the temple compound before the jam starts. When we left around 9.30, the traffic heading up starts from Air Itam town itself.

Took the chance to pray there too. Stick a few josstick and light a candle for world peace.

And I can say, the place is magnificent.

Iraqi doctorate student charged with reckless driving

NIBONG TEBAL: An Iraqi, who is taking a doctorate at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in electronic engineering, was charged in the Magistrate Court here Friday with reckless driving and causing the death of a student at the university, Fadilah Abdul Halim, 27, last Thursday.

Hamood Sheehab Hamid, 45, was charged with committing the offence driving in a reckless and dangerous manner, under section 41 (1) of the Road Transport Act 1987, at the traffic light exit to USM, at Jalan Transkrian about 9.45am.

Hamood Sheehab Hamid, 45, at the Nibong Tebal magistrate’s court on Friday

However, no plea was recorded because Hamood could neither understand English nor Malay

He neither understands English or Bahasa.. and yet he is taking PHD in engineering at USM? does that not raise questions? While we all poor mortals have to pass Bahasa to get a chance to APPLY for the university, this dude is taking up ONE PHD student’s space in a local university and he could not understand english or Bahasa.

GREAT!

What kind of students are we producing from the universities? Types like this!

Fantastic country this is. Just Fastastic.