I passed!

I forgot to mention that I passed my driving test. It was kinda cool as far as driving tests go. The test is administered in a room with 44 computer screens arranged on 3 rows of tables. Fifteen minutes before the time the test is to start everyone signed up to take the test (which costs S$65) checks in a the desk by the door where you enter the room. You have to show either your Singapore passport or your foreign passport and your employment pass. (Side thought here...if the US wants and idea on how to handle immigration they should look here). You are then given a piece of paper with a pass code on it. When it's time for the test to start the screens show a keypad where you enter your pass code then start the test. It's all touch screen by computer. You have 50 minutes to answer 50 questions. The parts of the test where they asked questions concerning stuff like when there are several cars at an uncontrolled intersection, "who has the right away?", was the best part. They showed the diagram with a little video of the situation being covered. You could even replay it if you needed to. I think it took me less than 20 mintues. You can only miss 5 questions or you fail. They don't tell you what you made, just whether you passed or failed. The one thing they still need to work on is the actual getting of the license. To do that I have to bring in my Texas license, my passport, my employment pass and a passport photo, along with copies of all that. They didn't tell us that part, so now I have to go back. (Rob has my driver's license anyway. He had to take it with him for the closing on the house.) Well, now that I have my license all it's going to make me do is get even more p*ssed off at these people here that are so rude when they drive and drive is a term I use loosely for what they do. Now I "KNOW" what they are doing wrong instead of it just seeming wrong.

Mailing stuff to the US

I just realized I needed to mail something back the states. While it's easy enough to just put the required postage on it to mail it from here it just takes FOREVER to get there. It could take up to 4 weeks. You just never know. My other option is to put my letter in the regular weekly mail that our office sends back to the states bundled up via DHL. All I have to do is put a US postage stamp on it and once it gets to Houston they put it in the mail there for me. That takes about 3 days. Trouble is...I don't have any US postage stamps. BUT I found away to fix that. I made my own stamps. While this isn't going to help me right now, it will help me out in the future. The stamps I made and ordered online will be mailed to my office then they will send them FedEX to us here at the project office in our regular weekly mail run. I think I one time I saw a site where you could make them and print them out yourself. I couldn't find that one again so this time I used Zazzle. I created it in a rush so I didn't take the time to sort through ALL the digital photos I have but I thought for my first try they came out just fine. What do you think?

Crawfish Pot

This is how big I want my next crawfish pot to be. Think I can bring it back on the plane? We saw this in Chinatown. In my mind I can picture jungle natives deep in the jungle with some explorer they caught tied up and sitting in it over an open flame. Like the cartoons I used to see when I was little. It is one of the biggest pots I think I have ever seen. Using Avery as a measuring stick, she's about 5'-0" tall.

Yummm! I can smell the crawfish now.

Car Toys Hall of Fame - New Additions

Here is the latest in car dashboard, head rest, steering wheel accessories for your viewing pleasure:

Do you think this strange person has a thing for Winnie the Pooh? Keep in mind you have to be at least 18 to drive over here.

This person is not a freaky at the Pooh lover.

Driving License Test

Today I go take the written driving test to convert to a Singapore Driver's License. Wish me luck! I am studying now and came across a sentence in the handbook I wanted to share with you.

In order to qualify for a license to drive a motor car...you should not be suffering from any disease or physical inability which would impair your driving ability, for example: mental disorder, epilepsy and the liability to sudden attacks of giddiness.

No wonder all the driver's here seem to always be pissed off!

Catching Speeders!

Ok..I don't want to give anyone back home any ideas. Believe me, I have a hard enough time trying not to get speeding tickets without DPS or the Harris Co. Sheriffs Dept. putting these things to use. I just thought I would share with you some of the things they try here. This is a speed camera in a trash can:

New speed-buster on Singapore Roads. Can be deployed anywhere!! Can be set up by anyone!! Even Traffic Police disguised as Road Cleaners!! Don't be fooled and think speed cameras are only fixed on expressways!!! Not anymore.

This Speed Cam are now everywhere. So watch out not only for the bridges and expressway. Also look out for these cam in bin that are placed near the road for no reason.

Frequent Targeted Location.

• Holland Rd (near Botanic Gdns)
• Clemenceau Ave (near the Indian Temple)
• Upper Thomson Rd (after AMK Ave 2 Junction)
• Bukit Timah Road (outside Chinese High School)
• Tanjong Katong Rd (before the ECP)
• Cantoment Rd (opp Everton Park)....

Leg Inspections

No...I'm not talking about people's legs. I'm talking about the legs on a jack-up rig. Today I went on my first leg inspection. This is where the shipyard has blasted away all the barnacles and you go along each horizontal and diagonal brace and check for corrosion. Then the shipyard will replace or repair as you have noted, actually marked on each piece. This is how high up we were: We took an elevator up and climbed down level by level using the vertical ladders installed in all the scaffolding by the shipyard. I must have whacked my shin half a dozen times on the ladders. This is an annode. They are attached to the legs so that they corrode and not the leg. This one looks like it's been doing it's job:On the way down we noticed that some of the teeth on the leg chords have been deformed. Can you imagine the pressure it takes to do this to a solid piece of steel? If you look close you can see the edge had been curled back like you were sharpening a crayon:Well, I'm all grimy and dirty now. In bad need of a shower. Too bad it's only like 12:30, 5 or so hours until quitting time. Ok, one last photo. Look closely at this one. This is one of the jacking legs with scaffolding all the way up and around. Where it pokes through the covering doesn't it look like razor stubble? I thought it looked like "a leg that needs a shave".

House for Sale

Since we are living over here in Singapore now, we have had our house in Katy, TX for sale. I really liked the house and the area and wouldn't mind keeping it, but it's just too much trouble to keep up when you aren't there. We have a pool in the back yard and all the landscaping that we have to now hire someone else to take of for us. We have had a few interested parties since it's been on the market but nothing ever went through. So, now we have someone else interested in it so keep your fingers crossed that it all works out this time. The new people want to close on June 29th so Rob and I are trying to decide who will go home for the closing. As much as I would like to go home we are just too busy here right now for me to leave, and Rob was thinking about going home anyway for a visit. We'll see how it all goes. Blair is coming over the first part of July so whoever goes for sure has to be back by then. Neither of us want to be away somewhere while she's here visiting. Here's a picture of our house. So if it doesn't sale this time you can let me know if you know someone that might be interested! Great neighbors and schools in the area. Close to I-10 and Hwy 290.

Just kidding...this is really our house. :-)

I'm SO Excited!!

Rob has agreed to go with me to see Mark Chesnutt in October in JAPAN!! WhooHoo!! I am SO excited. For those of you that know me, you know that one of my favorite things to do is go to concerts with friends. Looks like it's time for a new ticker:

Thought I smelled something

Yesterday we were so busy here at work and had back-to-back meetings that I never got to go eat lunch. I had a bag of microwave popcorn instead. And as you can tell....I burned it. That's all I can smell this morning. I couldn't figure out why I was still smelling burnt popcorn from yesterday until I remembered I through a big fused ball of it in the garbage and our guy that empties the trash cans hasn't made it around yet. I guess I'll go find a place to dump this out. I do know how to microwave popcorn by the way...but remember our microwaves here don't have the cool "popcorn button", so I didn't cook it long enough the first try so I added 30 seconds and it was just starting to pop again when there was like 10 seconds left so I kept adding time until I over cooked it.

Need a recipe?

I'm in the process of putting my favorite recipes on another blog site (What's Cookin' Tonight). I love cookbooks and clipping recipes out of magazines to try later. In an effort to get them all in one location I am putting them on my blog. Feel free to take a look and try some out. I'm happy to share. In an effort not to infringe any one's rights I have added the source of the recipe at the bottom of each recipe if I know where it came from.

What's up with the Kleenex's?

See the box of Kleenex's in the back window of this car? No? They are hidden in the "cute" little fuzzy box shaped like a house with a duck peeking out of the front door. Now do you see them? The tissues are dispensed through the chimney. (BTW...it was a guy driving this car). It's really strange to me to see all these cars over here with at least one box of tissues in the back window or on the front dash. A lot of times you see two, one on each side. AND they must sell these decorative covers somewhere. This morning coming to work I saw a Strawberry shaped box cover, again fuzzy, sort of like a stuffed animal. (Again, another male driver) If you were in need of a Kleenex, how do you get to it if they are in the back window? Oh! Wait a minute! That helps explain the bad driving!

Pictures from Phuket

Busy 'Round Here

Well, this week has been super busy with work. So I haven't had much free time to update here. Let's see...

• At Avery's graduation she received a Presidential Excellence Award for maintaining a 3.5 GPA throughout the year. I thought that was pretty cool.


• Afterwards we went to eat at a Brazilian Churascaria called Carnivour. It was ok..but not as good ad Fogo de Chao in Houston.


• Looks like I might go back to school to get an Engineering degree so that I can move up to Project Engineer with the company I work for. Excited about that too.


• Last Saturday I went to my first all-day scrapbooking workshop. It was from 10:00AM to 11:00 PM. Believe it or not time flew by. It was a lot of fun.


• We have removed the derrick and the drill floor off the rig that we are upgrading here in Singapore. Here are some pictures of that:

End of the 8th Grade

This post is geared more towards family & friends just update y'all on Avery. She had her 8th grade dance this past Friday and today is her 8th grade gradutation. I can't believe she is going to be in High School next year. Tomorrow is their last day of school. Rather than going to school they are taking a day trip to one of the islands close by. I'm not sure how many of her friends are headed back to the states or wherever they call home for the summer. Hopefully there will be enough of them around though so she doesn't get too bored.

Signs

Why is it that I am living in a country where over 75% of the population is Chinese do you not see any street signs written in Chinese, but back in Houston, in the areas where the residents are mainly Chinese the street signs are written in Chinese and English?

Ewww!

Ok...I have come to the conclusion that Singapore women must not wear slips under their skirts and dresses. Avery has her 8th grade dance tonight. Last night we went on a search for a 1/2 slip to wear under her dress. Why did I wait until the last minute? What was I thinking? Had I known that our trip to one of the largest, newest malls on the island wouldn't have a store that carried slips I would have started looking months ago or had someone send one over to us. Not only did the stores we went in not carry them, they looked at us like we had lost our minds. And I'm sure I was giving them the same look back. The sales ladies in one store, hell I'll name names TANGS, were all standing around not doing a damn thing including offering assistance to Avery and I as we scoured the lingerie department for a slip. I asked the lady in the section to the far left of the department and she sent us all the way over to the far right end. Of course when we got there they didn't carry them. The lady looked at me like she didn't even know what I was talking about. I asked if they knew of a store where we might find one (which is something I would have offered on my own if I had been the salesperson) and of course she had no idea. At that point you know I couldn't resist making some smart a** remark about the women in Singapore not wearing slips....EWWW! .... especially since everyone was being so friendly and helpful, NOT! So, leaving the mall...slipless...I told Avery I would go look today at lunch. And again, no luck, even in a lingerie store...where that is all they sell. Where is a Kohl's or Wal-mart when you need one?

Welfare Urine Test

Thank's to my hubbie for this post topic. I like the way this guy thinks! If you can't read the photo, this is what is says:

Don't help people sit on their rears

I have a question, not only for Douglas County, but for the entire state of Oregon. Like a lot of folks in this state, I have a job. I work, they pay me, I pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as they see fit. In order for me to get that paycheck, I am required to pass a random urine test, which I have no problem with.

What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test. Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check, because I have to pass one to go earn it for them?

Please understand, I have nothing against helping people get back on their feet. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone sit on their butt. Could you imagine how much money the state would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check?

Leonard Wilson

Learn to Speak Chinese!

Thank you Breann for supplying me with today's post! I love it!! It's perfect for being over here. I think I'll try some of these:

Learn Chinese in 5 minutes (You MUST read them aloud)


English Chinese

That's not right Sum Ting Wong

Are you harboring a fugitive? Hu Yu Hai Ding

See me ASAP Kum Hia Nao

Stupid Man Dum Dum

Small Horse Tai Ni Po Ni

Did you go to the beach? Wai Yu So Tan

I bumped into a coffee table Ai Bang Mai Ni

I think you need a face lift Chin Tu Fat

It's very dark in here Wai So Dim

I thought you were on a diet Wai Yu Mun Ching

This is a tow away zone No Pah King

That hurt. Ou Chi

Staying out of sight. Lei Ying Lo

He's cleaning his automobile Wa Shing Ka

Your body odor is offensive. Yu Stin Ki Pu

Great!!!! Su Pa

My Mother's day present

While we were in Phuket we visited a huge jewelry store. Thailand is known for their mining of sapphires and rubies. Rob was wanting to get me a mother's ring with Avery's birthstone being diamonds and Blair's being rubies we were in the perfect place to look. When we first walked in I spotted the most beautiful ruby ring I have ever seen. The ruby looked like it was on fire. But the price tag, although much better than in the US, was still more than what we were looking at spending. I found another really pretty ring with channel set diamonds and rubies in two rows. We bought that one however they had to re-size it and when they cut the ring all the stones came loose. So, they had to repair it and deliver it to us the next day. Well, when the delivered it the repair was done very poorly. So we went back up the the store later that afternoon. After a lot of looking and discussion, we left a deposit on the ring we saw first. I told Rob that if our plans were to come back at a later date and hope that ring was still there (or one like it), I'd rather just put the money into that one rather than buying one now then another one later. My birthstone is also the ruby (Blair and I have the same b-day). Tell me what you think: