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Happy birthday Santa!

A couple years ago I was 'Traveling' via google earth and I came across a Sinterklaas celebration that occurs on this day.

How odd. It looked like Santa, the concepts were the same as Santa but the dates where wrong. The long and short of it was that the Santa that I grew up to is based off this Dutch version of St. Nicholas. Every year since then I have always had it in the back of my head that Santa's birthday is on the 5th or 6th of December.

It really takes a lifetime to forget.

My real birthday..

My real birthday was this week and most of my real friends forgot it. My x-friend called me last weekend and reminded me that the day was coming up so I went on facebook and removed my birthday details to see who the real friends were. Lets just say if my real friends called or wrote on my crackbook for my birthday I would have exactly 3 whole friends. Even the girl who reminded me that it was coming up forgot to call, well she did call on the day but she was complaining about something as usual then she called back the day after and apologized for forgetting.

Sad eh? my fake bday in January was 100 times better. wingman tried to hold another barbecue for my bday but I passed cause that is too much attention for little ole me. Last year I went to a friend's house for her birthday drink up.. now that was the definition of sad. I wish I could put to words what went wrong with her night but it all sounds so mean and depressing in my head.

So what am I doing with myself, this is the first weekend I have off in a long time.. I think I'll go to a beach with preggz and get some sun on my pale ass.. hopefully the place will be empty and I can skinny dip too lol. I think your comments have been alluding to the fact that you want to hear about preggerz? Well the bun is slowly baking in her oven, lol she's not doing too well with the morning sickness though.. lol and yeah the milk has arrived. There is no milk yet but she moved up a cup size or two.. no complaints here :D

My first birthday in Barbados

The water looks so nice eh? It's a shame I haven't even stuck my toe in yet and I've been here for the past couple of days. I did make the effort to get back to the hotel early today and with the last few rays of sunlight hitting my face I threw myself into the Atlantic ocean. There are gorgeous beaches everywhere, you can't escape them, there was no way I was coming back to Jamaica without trying one out. Anyway I'll be here for a couple more days hopefully I can squeeze something more into my busy schedule.

So yesterday I did something I promised myself I would never do again in Jamaica, I went to TGIF to celebrate my birthday. After going to TGIF for my and a lot of my friends birthdays I decided to strike any such future endeavors from my datebook but the girls from the office over here decided that they were going to do TGIF and it was going to be my birthday today. *sigh* I went ahead and got my ice cream and a bunch of random people singing happy birthday to me. So I can now say I came to Barbados and celebrated my birthday and I have the photos to prove it! lol those pics aren't going to see the light of day though :p

A bit off topic but I don't think I would put this up in a post by itself but it's worth mentioning somewhere. So we all know they accepted my bid for the last condo I went to look at, that was step 1. Many steps and weeks later I signed the sales agreement just before I left the island and my bank should have sent the 15% deposit to my attorney yesterday. Also my mortgage company called me yesterday to tell me the process is complete and I can collect the documentation to have the sale proceed. yup.. I'm on the final leg to being a home owner. I can't wait to get back so I can wrap up business.

On saving money

So for Christmas I got my mother this nice brushed stainless steel toaster oven pictured above to replace her 20+ year old tiny rusty toaster oven. She loved it and claimed she didn't know how she managed without one for so long (*pops collar* yup my gift was great :p). Anyway since my birthday was last week and they had no idea what to get me they asked if I wanted a toaster oven too, how original. What was funny was that she asked me if I wanted the same one or a cheaper plastic model which costed 1/2 the price.. and she was serious. Silly questions aside I am now less one item away from having a fully stainless steel kitchen.

On to the matter of closing investment accounts.. intrest rates have been trending up but I noticed that it wasn't trickling down to me. So I called my bank and pointed it out to them and they told me they don't know when they will adjust their rates and they don't do private negotiations. I then enquired as to what kind of penalties I would face in closing my account, she answered then she swiftly ended the call.. she probably didn't even hear me say bye. So I drove over there on the way home from work to tell them cya and it was a different story. After much boot licking and time wasting I rejected their 100 point increase and was on my way to their competitors to build my cd ladder.

On to the matter of me being a bank, recently a friend asked me for a 7 figure($#,###,###.##) loan.. really now. He wasn't broke just having liquidity issues and made the terms of the loan very attractive but as I said before I'm not willing to take on that form of risk. It didn't really speak much for his "investment club" that every John and their dogs are starting these days which he was trying to get me to invest into.

The end of the beginning

yup it's official, I have just clocked the first twenty five years of my life and what do I have to show for it? This ecard my friend sent me.

The email also came with an apology so I was very curious to click the button to find:

older *sigh* I was caught off gaurd but good one.

So what do I plan to do for today? nada.. I think I pretty much lost interest in birthdays after growing up with my parents. The nail in that coffin was one February as a young teen when I asked my father what was I getting for my birthday only to have him point out that I didn't deserve anything.

To make the day interesting I left work early at lunch time to go home and sleep. yawn, still tired. between the birthday and work calls I probably only got in half an hour, it's like they were watching me and as soon as I dozed off the phone rang. I need some time off yet again. I only have to wait two more weeks before I can even consider applying for leave(according to my boss who is currently on leave). I'm guessing we need more people in my department, but thats just wishful thinking.

Happy new year again!

Chinese new year that is.. I thought I forgot about it this year but when I checked it was today. Let the 15 days of celebrations begin! For those of you(like I used to be a few years ago) who are wondering how random the Chinese new year is, it's based on the first day of the calender year that has a new moon. Join me in welcoming the year of the rat :p

Chinese new years means that my birthday is around the corner again.. sigh, another year to add to the stats. Birthday time also means gift or possibly gifts lol how sad. I appreciate gifts that I will use and some thought went into, so watches, clothes, cologne and any other played gifts have no home on my birthday. My advice to people who ask me what I want is to get me nothing, I'd be more pleased if they didn't waste their money on something I wouldn't appreciate to the fullest. One thing is certain though, I'll be damned if my parents try to drag me to that tired ass restaurant again. Feel free to leave gift ideas so I can pass em on to people who ask.

Bon voyage sun

The past couple of days have been rather wet here in Kingston and I am loving the rather cool weather the torrential rains have brought with it. I had plans to go to the north coast this weekend but of course that had to be scratched due to the inclement weather at hand.

All this rain has also highlighted the fact that water leaks in the trunk of my car. Water also drips from the roof in my kitchen but I have long accepted this problem will not go away due to the laziness of my landlady and I have just have a bucket under the leak all year round. Leaky roofs doesn't seem to bother me much as it would leak over my bed occasionally at my parents house. I would be sleeping and be awoken at 1am in the morning by some cold water dripping on my shoulder and would have to go for a container to catch the water them move over to the other side of the bed.

Aside from the rain flooding my trunk, turning the roads into a long parking lot in the evenings and squashing my North coast plans I spent a lot of cozy quality time with noodle at home. The artist Busy Signal also passed through the canteen one day for a signing session. I like some of his songs but I'm not really a fan of him as he beat up(wickedly) one of my friends who was one of the sweetest most harmless girl I knew. If you look at the pictures you might notice his knuckles are bruised.. I guess he gets into a lot of fights, one day he will get whats coming to him :p. Last week Beanie man also passed through too, my camera was in the car though so there were no Kodak moments captured by me then.

My father's birthday was last week as well so today we went out to lunch at the Terra Nova as usual to celebrate. I am usually rather tired of there food now but today their supposedly 80 item buffet was extra delicious. If I knew lunch was going to be that good I would have skipped out on the eggs, jerked sausage, bacon and hashed browns I had for breakfast this morning(thanks frozen food isle). Lets hope the food doesn't haunt me like the last time I went out with my father to lunch at Dragon Court(where I spotted a roach) three weeks ago which gave me the runs for the next few days. They claimed the food was that much more tastier and left with big smiles since it was my turn to treat and I footed the bill. I've had my eye on Ambrosia recently maybe we can go there next but it's so hard to leave the tested and proven Terra Nova.

One topic at lunch brought up by my sister was my apparently my ability to properly budget and manage money. Apparently she says she is getting old(late late 20's :p) and needs to settle down with this aspect of her life. She wanted a copy of my GnuCash to run on her mac laptop.. and she wonders why she has no money. Anyway GnuCash and its double entry book keeping system isnt for everyone so to spare her that pain and my pain of getting it installed on her OSX I recommended that she use one of the many free money management sites out there. Coincidentally recently I was helping Noodle set up and track her budget so all the following links were fresh in my browser.

• Buxfer - Good for keeping track of budgets and shared expenses such as shared rent/utility bills among room mates.
• ClearCheckbook - Haven't used it yet but it looks good from the tour.
• Expensr - also looks promising from the tour.
  

Also for y'all windows users I guess there is Quicken and MS Money if your willing to spend some cash on them. I also think the with the latest release of GnuCash they have ported it to windows.. I can't vouch for that one but I can say the unix branch is a stable solid piece of software.

Money efficient

One of my once close friend's birthday is this weekend, so a few weeks ago I saw her online and asked her what she was doing and what she wanted for her birthday the reply was nothing and not sure respectively. I told her to give me an idea of what she wanted(I knew it should be entertaining) and of course the next day she sent me her wish list lol.

1. a camera
2. a new cell phone
3. shoes
4. a nice hand bag
5. DVDs
6. 2GB jump drive
7. a book (she said if I got the book I needed to supplement it with something else.. like item 5)

I was expecting the outcome to be funny but she out did herself, the list went to 10 but I had to cut it off there.. she even started pasted links such as what type of phone I should get. I had to point out to her that phone wouldn't even work with her current mobile provider which just goes to show her desiderative greed. I was initially going to get her a gift certificate for a day at a spa but her wish list has changed my mind and shes probably just going to get a card.

I'm not downgrading her gift cause I'm cheap money efficient, there is good logic and a background story to this chick. She lived in the lap of luxury when she was going to school spending her mother's money getting everything her little heart desired(also bankrupting her mother in the process). She finished university and got a job that didn't pay too well and her mother pulled out the teat from her mouth and life gave her one big slap out of the lap of luxury back to reality.

She couldn't go to the hair dresser every week, shop for clothes or whatever girls buy, etc.., she was broke as a joke. Being the prudential financial advisor I like to imagine myself to be I guided her throughout her hardships helping her manage her income/expenses/credit card debt and it was all good, her books were balanced and not in the negative. She eventually got a good job last year and claimed to be managing fine now that she had extra money, I stopped paying attention to her finances as she seemed to be getting by on her own with the better pay.

That was 1 year ago, she is now jobless as her 1 year contract ended Friday gone. My basic calculations of her take home salary tells me that she should have paid off her school fee(she was pursuing her MBA in finance.. the irony) and be in good financial standings over the last year, this is not the case though. Last month she called me asking for assistance in getting her DSL back up as it was disabled due to her outstanding bills. She asked me to log on to her bank account and pay the bills then contact the ISP to get the service reactivated, I obliged. Her bank's dashboard showed me a very empty savings account and two maxed out credit cards both of which had late payment fines with growing interest on the outstanding balances... wtf. I ignored and payed her bill and got the internet service reactivated and spared her the lecture on being responsible.

How is it possible that the girl dig herself into such a hole in such a short period of time? I washed my hands of her after her long distance BF came to visit her for three months and she refuses to see my points on how unhealthy there relationship is for her. She claimed she tried to break up with him 3 times in January after I spoke to her about it but he didn't accept it. He is now back in that other country probably with the other girl he lives with(just for sex and to assist him in getting citizenship according to him) over there and now she is here by herself engaged to get married to him next year... I kept my comments to myself.

In the weeks after looking at her bank accounts she called and I learned that not only did she have credit card debt but she also took out a loan and still have tuition outstanding. Not to point any fingers here but it is my assumption that her dilemma is also assisted by her bum of a fiance who is full of crackpot schemes. I am not being mean, I have never met the man, I am just repeating how I've heard her refer to him previously.

EDIT---
It seems I went off into a rant there for a bit.. all of the above was written on Friday, it's now Sunday and her birthday has passed lets just wrap up this post. I had to write about this because most of her list violated my gift giving policy for girls which clearly states not to buy something for a girl she can't afford herself, hence she got a birthday Hallmark card. Of course there are subclauses that allows for exceptions in cases where the girl is responsible but life deals them a bad hand and hence can get a nice expensive gift but this is not the case for my friend.

Birthday weekend, a new year.

Yesterday marked the first day of the year of the Boar and also my birthday. My parents took me out to lunch at the Terra Nova hotel for their famous (and now played) brunch. That place is so tired, they have the same items every Sunday and my family always insists on going there. Its sad I'd much rather have gone to dim sum at Dragon Court but not all of my family likes Chinese food.

Anyways my parents did surprise me this year with a gift, I wasn't expecting anything at all, they mentioned it as we sat down to eat that my gift was in their car and they would need to follow me back to my apartment to give it to me. ?! Of course I was confused and they explained it was about three feet wide and weighed about 80 pounds. I didn't give it much conscious thought after that but apparently my mind worked on it as I ate and the thought of a safe popped into my mind as I knocked down dessert.

Of course I was right as my parents are pretty predictable buying me gifts they think I need, I was just lucky this time that I also thought I needed a safe too, I love this gift. I have been contemplating buying one for a few months now to secure my documents and other things I wouldn't want to perish in fire.. sorry potential thieves I don't have anything of monetary value in my safe. I have even committed the long series of turns to get the combination lock open to memory already.

The birthday weekend was just like any other weekend for me but it brought misfortune to a few other people. On Saturday I was driving on some roads behind Eastwood park and noticed a large column of smoke some distance away. As I got closer I noticed a car in a big blaze also spreading fire to the building it was parked under. I also briefly saw a girl with the skin from the whole of her right arm seared off, exposing a white underneath with streams of red blood. I was about to drive off as my friend in the car asked me to stay longer as she recognized the girl with the burns from high school. I looked closer and I knew her too, it was one of my neighbours from my old apartment a girl I affectionately called Supple. I was stunned a bit when I realized it was her but she, amazingly, stopped and waved back at me as she was entering some guys van who offered to take her to the hospital. My take on the situation is that the car caught on fire and she tried to reach in to save her purse or something and BAM, no more skin on right arm. I tried calling her today but no answer, if my theory is right her phone would have burned in the car too, maybe I'll go look for her tomorrow.

On Sunday morning now at about 1am I heard tires screeching then a loud crash somewhere up the road, I was a bit busy to go investigate immediately but about 30 minutes later my friend insisted on looking so we jumped in my car and went for a short drive. I saw nothing but she claimed to see where the car knocked down a sign. That accident apparently was minor or I drove on the wrong road. Later on during the afternoon while accepting the birthday phone calls I heard another big accident down the road and I could tell this one was big(I counted hearing the car roll three times). I told my friend I had to jet and took a stroll down the road to see a burgundy lancer upside down on the sidewalk with the young female driver standing behind the car on her phone explaining to somebody the grave situation. She is a lucky girl, only walking away with a few scratches and bruises, the car looks like its heading to the scrap yard.

As long as all that bad luck stays away from me I am cool, this new year looks like its shaping up to be a good one for me. *keeping my fingers crossed that it stays good until my leave starts next week*