slacking off..

It has been two months without a post and yep I said it, finding time to write a post is me slacking off.

There is so much to do

• house work
• school work
• baby work
• work work
• standby work
• overtime work
• sidejob work

Even my books are no longer balanced don't be fooled though, they are still mostly correct. On the plus side, my postgrad studies has reaped benifits already, I can now easily model my opex and capital requirements and make better decisions. I am now well on my way to paying off my mortgage in maybe 10 years all things remaining equal.

For those of you who may be interested this is what has been terrorizing everyone and everything in my apartment, don't watch the face, she just tasted something bad :p. She has just turned 10 months now and looks like she will soon be ready to start standing on her own for more than 5 seconds at a time.

So what else is new? let me review a few firsts and lasts since my last post two months ago.

FIRSTS:

• I slept at school one night in the post graduate lounge before a morning exam. I was a bit too lazy to drive back home and risk not waking up in time so I just camped out on a couch and slept like a hobo. It's surprising how much activity goes on in the library late at night even when school is off its regular semester.
• Swimming in the pool at school. I now swim there every chance I get, trying to build up my stamina so that one day I can swim the length with ease. I met a fellow blogger there one Saturday too. Hi Gela! come back to the blogshpere.
• I bought a new GPS device. This new gadget+ the jimny and myself will conquer all corners of this land. First stop will be Morant Point.
• Being disengaged at work. Change is the only thing constant at my company and I am now tired of it and their attempts to save every penny at their employees expense. Don't get it twisted, I still love my job and am very grateful for being gainfully employed.
• Thanks to my coworker who didn't mind me swiping his test LG phone for a bit I am now an Android user. It's a nice phone and OS full of features but something doesn't seem right about it. I probably miss at least 10 calls a day due to this phone disconnecting them when I try to answer it. I don't recall having this issue with the bb or palm.
• I was driving through Grants pen at around 11pm one night and the police caught me in their spot check drag net. All of my papers checked out ok but this fool still tried to get me to give him something, a monetary contribution I assume. I just took my papers, drove off and gave him a view of my tail lights.

Some lasts:

• I canceled my last credit card with NCB. It was fun whilst it lasted we have traveled a small section of the world but it was time to part ways. The last thing I bought with it was probably some blank circuit boards from Japan in February.
• The beach.. I cant tell when last I've been there. I miss you mr crab
• ?

I guess the lasts list isnt as large. Anyway cya next month.

Objective function changed

My civic had served me well for the past 6 years but it was time for a change, when I bought this car I wanted something high performance and sporty. I have always wondered what my next car would be, I didn't really fancy any of the new cars on the market that I could afford. The civic still runs fine but I am very weary of such an old car that has been through so much. Seeing as I had a young one around now I wanted to shift away from a fast car to one of more utility.. I was also tired of driving such a low car and had to be mindful of how close I park up to the curb, I recently ripped off the front lip after it got hooked on the curb.. *sigh* I wasn't  really a fan of much SUVs apart from the Land Rover 60 since they guzzled gas and most of them were really just SUV body shells on a car chassis *cough* CRV.

Enter: Jimny


I had eyes for this car since I saw how rugged the Suzuki Samurais(Jimny predecessor) were. Picking this car was a very controversial move as everyone hates it(with a capital H). I didn't care much though it just means that it will less likely to be stolen. It also ment that finding one would prove to be very difficult, I searched the usual Sunday classified ads in the Gleaner week after week and nobody had any listed for sale. Some quick research revealed that these rugged cars often had owners that will not part ways with their vehicles, one is either a Jimny lover or a Jimny hater, there was no one in between. After 6 weeks of searching I only saw maybe 3 old Jimnys  that did not meet my criteria listed for sale in the classifieds and I figured this would be a waiting game as the used car dealers did not carry them and the local owners were not letting go of any.

I eventually found a dealer that had 2 that met my standards and my mechanic gave them the green light so I dropped a stack and got a '06 manual transmission Jimny. Surprisingly I could draw from my knowledge of 11 years ago when I was learning to drive and the transition back to manual transmission was relatively smooth. Can I say I love this tiny car? I have gotten a bit adventurous and even dusted off my gps reciever and power inverter and captured some data.

This is data from my trip as I left work one afternoon around 4:30pm and traveled from my downtown office to home. The top graph shows the speed(traffic was horrible! look at all of the dead spots) and the bottom graph shows the height above sea level. For those of you who haven't gone metric yet it starts at around 50 feet and goes up to 450. I have done a little bit of off roading so far and it has been great, I'll post more on that later. This last image is a plot on a map of the captured gps coordinates, I cropped off the last bit that detailed the final turns to my apartment.. the gps is surprisingly accurate, don't want any unwanted visitors.

rubber cowy

Who knew the importance of a rubber ducky? the little monster now splashes and kicks up a storm if she doesn't have her bath toys to distract her.

FYI that is not a rubber duck it is a rubber chicken.. really now? she also has a sheep and a few other oddball animals.

The cow is my favorite. mooo!

just passing time

1. tiny ink stone
2. tiny bowl
3. tiny spoon
4. tiny ink stick
5. tiny brush (x2)
6. tiny rice paper
7. tiny introductory guide to Chinese calligraphy

I got this from the Logos Hope book ship earlier this year and like most other things else I own, it sits idly waiting for me to give it a try. For those of you who think I have given up on blogging, I haven't. I even want to start a photo blog on tumblr. Please correct me if I'm confused though because I probably have only spent exactly 6 minutes scrolling through tumblr and came to the conclusion that it is a blogging site.

So whats new? I still have my job and they attempt to drown me with work. I still manage to keep my head up, I got over 4.5 out of 5 for my annual appraisal, my highest score yet. It is kind of strange that I am getting review scores like these now that I am distracted with the little monster(see below) and school. I still also manage to pass my postgraduate courses as well, so far it seems like I am going with a B+ average.. no distinction there but for the little work that I have been putting in I am pleasantly surprised and more than satisfied. It is ridiculous how much material they expect you to learn in 6 weeks, do a project, presentation, homework then sit an exam and start the process all over again. I can't wait for the two years to be over.

Lastly my little monster.. sigh. Not a bad way to spend my time.

She insists on putting everything in her mouth.. I understand though, I somewhat remember the days when everything was new to me, the good old days. She is 6+ months now and has 6 teeth. She can't move to a sitting position on her own but if she has stuff to grab on she can climb up to a standing position all by herself, of course to create more mischief.

Jamaica not living up to its name

Who knows what that is?

Give up? it's a swing check valve I bought last week to replace a spring check valve that is on the outlet of my water tank that is preventing me from getting the last few liters of water that potentially remain in my tank. To back track a bit let me bring everybody up to speed for those of you who do not live in Kingston, Jamaica. We are currently going through an extended drought and the NWC reserves(for the Liguanea plains) are running low. Now to prevent them from running dry they have instituted drastic blackout periods with areas, such as the one I live in, seeing as little as 4 hours of supply per day at low pressure.


The last time I checked Jamaica was supposed to be the land of wood and water, in fact it is inherent in the definition of Jamaica but some how I only "have" water for 20 hours of the week. I also need to mention that during those few hours I still do not actually get water as the pressure is so low it only serves the ground floor and I live one floor up. To further complicate things my water tank is on the roof, 4 floors up, so you know that has not seen the likes of water for many weeks now. Ahh the many joys of apartment life.

How do I cope? I have some 5 gallon buckets, some smaller buckets and a large array of 5 litre bottles that I fill up by the garden pipe on the common front lawn when water is available downstairs and haul up the precious commodity back home. Other people have opted to buy water from water trucks who are making a killing during this period. They charge retail $2000 to fill a 200 gallon tank and I think around $8000 for the whole truck of water. I also question the quality of the water these trucks are supplying as well as people see them drawing water from questionable(swamp) sources and delivering it untreated.

I also have my parents who live on the outskirts of town to rely on. I took a shower at their house and gathered water from them today since there was no water at all for the past two days and my in apartment reserves were running low. But when I came home it seemed like the whole community reached a low point as I saw a water truck delivering water and about 10 of my neighbors came out with their bottles to get some "free" water. A pretty sad sight to see them scampering for the little water that the truck man would allow them to take.

UWI Carnival '10

As with my usual tradition I was at the UWI Mona ring road Carnival event today. Unlike the other years things have changed though. First of all I actually belonged there, I stepped out class around 4:30pm and things were just getting kicked off. I heard them advertise it a few times on the radio leading up to this so I came prepared with my EOS body, 50mm and 135mm M42 lenses, this is the other change. I would usually try to capture all the action shots but my intentions with these lenses was to capture wonderfully focused portraits drowned in poor man's bokeh. These manual focus lenses with such a shallow depth of focus is the amateur photographers arch-nemesis to action scenes such as what I was facing, young college coeds gyrating their waists like they were on fire.

I was pretty casual, only sitting down on the grass waiting for someone to stop long enough for me to snap them. I am sure the thousands of viewers that google pours in to this site yearly will be disappointed that there are no scantily clad 18 year olds here anymore. Don't worry though I got an eye full for all y'all as they worked themselves up into a frenzy.

I wish had more old M42 lenses, most of my favorite shots of my daughter was taken with 50mm lens, my money goes elsewhere now.

At work..

*sigh*

It is almost 1am and I am at work yet again. I was in the middle of watching the hurt locker(great movie so far) and I got the call to come in. meh.

My work here is just to watch the building services people flip between JPS, UPS and all sorts of combinations of bypass while my servers go flip flop waiting for the power to settle.

All is well though, I haven't blogged in a bit for good reasons. look out for more in the near future.

The Zolomonster

I was looking for an exciting photo to reintroduce myself to blogsphere and I could only find pictures of my daughter. I am not sure if it is sad that all the photos I have taken in the last 2+ months are of the same theme.

Tonight is my first entire night alone with my daughter and thus far she has been mostly well behaved. She just woke up and I fed her with formula for the first time. I picked her up to burp her and she was out cold, one thing is for sure, she loves her papa's shoulder.

I have a new found appreciation for my parents. Give thanks.

Hello World

It was a few hours after my last post and was now 3:30am.

I was awoken by groans from a mommy to be ready to pop so it was off to the hospital.

The wait was not long(for me) and at 5:33am out pops a pink hot mess that immediately starts crying.

Hello World

She makes the cutest faces.

I now spend my mornings before work trying to dodge projectile poop while we bath her.

September to remember

I would like to introduce a 36 hour day.

It is now the end of September and this is my first post. The last time I wrote a post I was living at my old apartment, I am now fully moved and almost finished settling in. As with every other procedure that involves the Jamaican government offices I could not get the new place certified in time but I still had to move since I gave notice. I ended up moving into a place with no power and suffering for two weeks.

With no power and no fridge I survived on my tea candles, 3G dongle and my laptop to get me through the nights when I got home from work. For the weekends I crashed at a friend's house and she treated me like a king. Eventually the power service was turned up and I quickly got my security grills and curtains installed, I could now rest with piece of mind and with privacy.

Of course in the mix of everything is still school. I have already completed two courses, submitted one research paper and sat one exam already. The first exam wasn't so bad, I finished with about an hour to spare probably a first for me. Lets hope I passed with flying colors :p. Other than that UWI has changed greatly since I've left. They have added a special section to the library for postgraduates only and I am loving it.

Between the school tuition, moving to a larger apartment, having three mouths to feed and general homeowner expenses has put me in a situation I have not been in for a while.. broke. It is just really a matter of cash flow and normally it wouldn't be much of an issue but I am looking to upgrade my couch and I saw a really nice three piece leather living room set that is now haunting my day dreams. I quickly wrote it off as being unaffordable but I saw in a magazine today the price has been slashed by over 20% to something more acceptable. It's time to reshuffle the budget to get in on these sales prices!

August updates

Oh blog how I have forsaken you.

Time is not on my side, there have been many things to do.

1. Tie up loose ends with the old landlord
2. Get electrician to re-certify new house then get power supply activated
3. Get metalwork contractors to install security grills in the new house, a must in Jamaica.
4. Buying baby stuff to quell the irate pregnant girl.
5. Get curtains made to stop new neighbours on spying on me.
6. Homework. OMG going back school is crazy.. I have to suffer two more years of this.
7. The side job. I will probably lose this work given the amount of time I put into it last week.
8. Bills. I paid all of my July credit card and utility bills late not because I didn't have the money, because I didn't have the time.
9. Day job. Two people doing the job of six? a recipe for delayed but sure disaster.

I plan to try and get two days departmental leave this week to handle some of the monster tasks that are yet to be completed. Wish me luck because I don't think my boss will be too happy with this.

On a side note, I like the finer things in life, I can't afford them but I will admire from far. One of these items are watches and last week my coworker reminded me of this when he left his watch on his desk and asked us to secure it for him. I dropped it in my desk draw and locked it without much thought but when I didn't see him the next day I popped it out to further inspect it since I knew that he liked to collect nice watches. It was a very nice auto winding mechanical watch, I couldn't tell when was the last time I saw one of these. After a quick google search it turned out that the watch could buy my car, they start off at $5000USD and go up to $90,000 depending on the casing and options. I promptly took off my watch and wore his watch for the rest of the day until he popped up. Ahh the finer things.

summer work

Did I mention that I had an intern? the key word being had.

I did mention that they were slashing 20% of my department at work and that some how maths out to one person with that person being my coworker. We had the same job title, worked at the same level and sat in the same large empty room alone in a mostly abandoned building downtown for many years. I always figured that he was my competition and would most likely be promoted before me since he had many years experience over me.. I was wrong(thankfully).

I am not promoted but at least I have a job. It was the decision of my boss' boss and for the first time I could see it in his face and hear it in his voice it was a hard one as he explained how he reached to this decision. It was a bittersweet moment as apparently my efforts had not gone unnoticed by the senior management but he the fallout is that will be jobless now and I will have to pick up his workload. To put things into perspective when I joined the company the job that my boss and I are currently doing was being done by a team of 7 people, a 71% reduction in staff. Now the competition(if any) is between the boss and myself lets hope I can survive.

Anyway back to the subject, shortly after they cut my coworker they gave me an intern. I was a bit confused as to how they were cutting people but still managed to maintain a summer program but I was happy for any assistance I could get. He was a fresh grad from university and was hoping to get a permanent job, this was perfect, exactly what I wanted. I treated him with respect, assigning him weekly objectives, giving him training material and gave him the ultimate goal to finish developing a database webapp I had started in my free time. My boss would have(and wanted) to give him some brainless slave work to do and I should have. He sucked at the work I assigned to him I had to be following behind him and fixing everything he did.

The final slap in the face was when the intern came to me at the end of his second week and resigned ughh!! two weeks gone down the drain. He was offered a [ever so scarce] permanent job at some other company so I let him go, I would never hold it against him in these harsh economic times. My friends and coworkers all think that I drove him away but hey if you cant stand the heat stay out of the kitchen.

Homeowner: check.

- Go back to Disney world.
- Get post graduate degree.
- Become propertied by 26.
- ... etc.

Well this is one life goal I am glad to cross off the list and I have now replaced it with the goal of shaving 17 years off my mortgage term to finish paying back my loan in 8 years. This of course is under the assumption that all things remain equal, yes I aim high.

It has been one week since I got the possession papers and keys and the only thing I have done so far is given my old landlord notice. Of course she asked why I was leaving(I am a great tenant) and I had to remind her that 3 years ago when negotiating my lease with her I made sure to assert that this will be the last place I was going to rent(I hate moving) and the next time I move it will be because I bought somewhere. good memories.. lets just hope that when my end date comes she gives me back my full security deposit and not try to nitpick like my last penny pincher landlord who kept a portion because she wanted to pay her way through medical school.

The place is fairly new, about 2 years old and mostly move in ready. I need to get the electricity turned up and security grills installed(a must given Jamaica's current crime situation). I bought a new deadbolt lock for my front door today and I'll probably drop by there early tomorrow morning before work to attempt to install it myself, how hard can it be?

Did I mention that it is less than a 2 minute drive away from one of my office locations?! Being so retardedly close to work I'll probably end up working from home and not going to the office most days.. lol lets see.