Reflection

Dogbone gave me a desk calendar every year. I have been using the calendar since 2000 (I think) and every year, during the last week of December when things are pretty quiet in the office, I would flip through my desk calendar and look at what had happened in the past 12 months

This year was an interesting year. I started the year in Dallas, and came back on the day before CNY. Spent CNY with the family (mine and Anne’s).

In February, I went for a all guys trip to Penang with the old school friends: Loochomus, Baliant, Whitedruid. In March, I made a LANparty trip to Cameron Highlands with Zipd, Dogbone, Droolman and Gayric.

In April, I started hunting for a house. I saw a gadzillion houses – some are pretty good, others were disappointing.

Attended Monica’s wedding in May. In the same month, I saw Grease, the musical in KLCC Convention Center.

June marked the month where I was promoted to a managerial position. In July, my company moved to a new building. I started to look and hire in July. It was a busy month and significant in a way – I always feel that by giving people a job, I am changing their lives and somehow helping these people and their families. Lots of stress and excitement in this new job.

My youngest sister graduated in August and went for her convocation in Bangi. I went with Anne’s family to Grik, a village north of Perak (very near Kelantan) to visit her maternal grandfather. It was an important and good bonding session and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. August is also the month where my house hunting activities intensified. I believe I went to see house almost every weekend!

I found and signed the S&P for my house in Bandar Utama in September after 5 gruesome months of house hunting. October was the time I started to think about my proposal to Anne. Proposed in November.

In a blink of an eye, I now find myself in December, keys to a new house in my hand, ever ready to face 2007 and hoping that it will be a fruitful and memorable one. I hope that I am able to create more values in the friends, families and society, perhaps making an effort to focus on treasures of the heart instead of treasures of the storehouse (money).

All the best to everyone in your New Year.

Christmas at Monica's

That's the Christmas tree at Monica's house this year. Very quiet Christmas. From the 6 Friends, 3 were around this Christmas: Anne and myself, Phoebe and of course Monica. Everyone was sober. It reminds me of Season 10 of Friends - everyone is grown up or married or attached. Things are just more serious and not-fun. We don't have a fun-Bob (if you have seen the Friends episode on fun-Bob, you will know what I mean) anymore.

Monica's mom's fried rice and jelly cocktail drink is still as delicious as ever.

BU12

So I received my keys last Friday and went to inspect the house again. To my dismay, I discovered that the master bedroom is filled with stinking cat poo! There's so much of it that I suspect that my bedroom must have become a nesting place for these "miang" cats. GRR.. so last weekend, my father and I had to clean up the place. So smelly.. yucks...

After a few cans of Lysol and air freshener, the place smells like new :)

Stealing Thunder

In one episode of Friends, Monica was upset with Rachel for stealing her thunder i.e. stealing the attention Monica is supposed to get - it was her birthday I think.

This Christmas eve, we are all going to Monica's house to celebrate Christmas. It's a yearly event and we have been doing this for years. This time though, Anne will be going to Monica's with me. A lot of colleagues will meet Anne for the first time. I hope that we don't steal Monica's thunder - she will be very upset :P

Looking back on some of the happenings around me, I find that I tend to steal people's thunder... like the other day, I stole Joey's thunder when his farewell dinner turned into Ringgit's birthday dinner :P

Keys

This Friday I will be receiving the keys to the house in BU!
YAY!

So happy...

Now comes the reno and other works... YAY!

The Love Diamond

Have there ever been a time where you are absolutely thrilled with a purchase you made? A time where your choice was validated again and again that it was the right purchase and you were positively happy that you trusted your feelings and followed your heart? Well, it happened to me tonight.

I talked about buying a LD in this post. LD is actually The Love Diamond. Yes, I bought an engagement ring. I wanted to propose to Anne when I was writing the post and in fact, as of 19 Nov, I already have. However, that's another story for another day.

In this post I wanted to promote The Love Diamond. The boutique is called The Love Diamond and the diamonds they sell are named Love Diamond. This boutique is owned by The Carat Club, a prestigious diamond retailer in Malaysia. Ross, Monica and Phoebe went with me to hunt for an engagement ring. Our first stop were in Sunway Pyramid as we met there to try out the new Tony Roma's ribs. Sunway Pyramid has only 3 jewelry stores. Monica suggested that we go to MidValley to continue our search as MV has more store.

We went to Mid Valley, found Love Diamond and made the purchase. My decision was based on the sales-lady's excellent presentation and of course, the name "The Carat Club". She was convincing when she said that a Love Diamond is an ideal cut diamond - what this means is that each facet of the diamond is arranged with mathematical precision such that it formed a perfect 8 hearts and 8 arrows - this can be seen using a a special magnifying glass, which she demonstrated by showing it to us.

You can visualize the perfect 8 hearts by looking at the "O" in the Love Diamond logo. That's how it looks like on an actual diamond!

Each Love Diamond sold comes with a certificate which has actual picture of taken of the diamond, displaying the perfect symmetry of the 8 hearts and 8 arrows. Each Love Diamond is so unique such that I could bring it back years later to upgrade to another Love Diamond.

The setting was beautiful too. I chose their popular setting called Embrace. It has a heart shape and it's very petite - perfect for Anne's small hand.

I could also write a message in my own handwriting and they would laser-engraved that message into the ring. I thought this was totally cool - personalization.

So, I walked away from the shop, knowing that I have done the right thing.

Two weeks later, the sales lady called me. I went to MidValley to collect the ring and a few weeks later, I proposed. It fits her finger perfectly. I was very proud of myself to be able to guess correctly. Anne and I returned to the shop to have the ring engraved. I told the sales lady to pitch her talk to Anne which she gladly did. On top of that, they gave us the "magnifying glass" for free so that we could see the symmetrical 8 hearts and arrows anytime we wanted. This is what I called after sales service.

On top of that, I even received quarterly magazine from The Carat Club. I know these are spam stuff, trying to make you buy more jewels - the fact that it makes one feel good that the purchase one did was from a reputable company. I don't think Poh Kong nor Diamonds and Platinum give you such good service.

ZipD told me that his company, one of the top law firms in Malaysia, was tasked of filing the trademark "The Love Diamond" for The Carat Club. This demonstrate a kind of class - not many people would employ top law firms to do intellectual property filing (I think).

So if you ever want to buy a diamond.. get a Love Diamond!

Update: This seems to be a really popular post. Searching in it Google it turns up as the 9th match, which is kinda cool. Because of that, I am uploading a picture of the Love Diamond taken during the bridal photo shooting.

Busy busy busy Bee

It’s been a busy November month. I have to chase people at the insurance company, lawyers and what not to ensure the loan for the house is processed on time. Then there’s so many wedding dinners/events that I was involved in. Of course, there’s WOW in the equation and year end staff assessment. So many balls to juggle and what dropped – mamak/brunch session with friends. Ai.. can’t be helped. Sorry guys.

December is not any better – there’s hiring and there’s American guests dropping by. Lots of time spent here too. Of course, age is a factor – somehow I can’t stay up as late as I used to.

So much things to do. So little time and energy.