Sunday, October 30, 2005

Left-Behind Jack

Mileage: 19267 km

Jack gets left behind while I go home to the Land Below the Wind for the festives season. See you in a week, Jack. I trust bro will take good care of you while I'm gone. I trust. *Hint *Hint.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Klang Jack

Mileage: 18921 km

Jack bravely ventures to the land of crows for some engagement attire shopping. On a Sunday. A week plus away from Deepavali / Raya celebrations. Very brave indeed.

As expected it was a challenge getting a parking space for Jack, but otherwise it was surprisingly un-busy considering the circumstances. I had envisioned a mad press of bodies. too much people, too much noise, too much smells and too less space. Surprisingly there were none of these. There were many shoppers but none of the suffocating scene of pushes, shoves and jostles I so dreaded.

It was a pleasant few hours. It was a bit challenging getting clothes that fit for a small sized, no-bum no-asset person (before you snigger imagine a full-bodied Indian beauty and then imagine me. I'm small. Everywhere.) but we managed it under 3 hours. We got the Punjabi suit (for tray exchange) and Lengga suit (for me to wear) that we came for, before all parties in attendance got tired. Not bad.

Jack then headed home with it's cargo of clothes and people - *FS, FSIL, FNIL and me.

* Future spouse, sister-in-law and nieces-in-law respectively

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Interest-free Jack

Off to bank to fork out Jack's 8th loan installment.

There. Just settled the interest on Jack's 5 year loan. Now we can start paying the bank on the loan amount proper. 40K to go!

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Jack-napped

Jack spends yesterday in captivity. Bro takes him off to work while car-man takes bro's ride for a service in Axis Garage while I'm left with Eddy the AD Resort for the day.

It was weird. First time I've been without Jack and it honestly felt incomplete. It was weird being at the wheels of another. (Especially so when you feel really tiny in that other vehicle :p). It was just weird weird weird without Jack.

Quite a joyful moment when Jack came home later that day.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Jack-venture: What-The-F...

ish.

Jack spent the afternoon driving around looking for the much-touted aquarium shop "What The Fish". With blur me at the wheel and blur Eric navigating with an outdated 3rd edition KL road map (which didn't include the area we were getting at because at the time of print the area was not yet in existence!), Jack had a fun time getting lost and exploring new places in the attempt to get un-lost.

After a lot of wrong turnings and uncontrollable laughter, we managed to (accidentally) find the place. The place was all it promised it was... not. Blank dismal tanks, hardly a handful of fishes and a non-variety of plants. It was utter, utter disappointment. I think I glimpsed tears in Eric's eyes after we finished our under-10-minutes browsing.

Kianyang and his Other Half was surprised to find us lounging at the sidewalk waiting for them when they arrived few minutes later (thanks to our wonderful direction-giving, I must add). After a quick survey Kianyang came to the same conclusion....

Place: What The Fish
Address: 7-1, Jln PJU 1/3F Sunwaymas Commercial Centre 47300 PJ
Consensus: What the F...

Jack then left to other fish places and was proud to be the transport vehicle of 30 small tetras later that day.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Jack featuring..

... other people's car stories.

Mileage: 18277 km

Jack is fine and dandy, but others were not so lucky. HotShot, Obsius's-yet-un-named baby and SampahMan's ride had each a close call recently.

On a happier note Nairud is getting a new baby. Congrats!


Post-Edit

HotShot's owner has pointed out that HotShot actually has two incidents recently.
This is the other one

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Penang Bridge Jack






















Jack crossing Penang bridge, 26 Sep.
Photo courtesy of Joan.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Missing Jack

Mileage : 18089km

There has been no recent blog activity on Jack. But Jack has hardly been sitting quietly at home. Here's a summary of what Jack has been up to, in the past month while I was 'out' sorting my minorly-depressed, lack-of-interest-in-anything head.

1) Bukit Beruntung Jack
Jack goes down to Bukit Beruntung for cousin J's marriage registration dinner/drink fest. Congrats, Cousin J and New Cousin May. Toast to a wonderful married life together.

There were a lot of inevitable 'so how's your engagement preparations coming along?' questions directed to me and car-man from the multitude of family members. We don't know, folks. We're waiting for the Suns and Moons and Jupiter to align first. Due to some annoyingly kepoh aunties raising concerns to an ailing grandma while she was lying in Cardiac Care Intensive Ward (for God's sakes, how crude are you to use a sick old lady like that), our chosen-for-convenience and agreed-upon-by-ALL date was forced to be called off. Date unsuitable because bad month, with a big fat snake sitting on the date, if you consult the 'correct' calendar... Am I making sense? No? That's what I thought.

2) KLIA Jack
Jack makes two trips to KLIA to fetch and return Daddy dearest. Dad down to visit ill Grandma. She's out of the hospital now, bless her.

3) Penang Jack
Penang is... beautiful. Jack goes down for a weekend in Penang, officially for company teambuilding exercise but managing to sneak in a charming tour of Penang and catching up sessions with dear old friends.

Penang is... beautiful. Jack was a bit alarmed by the aggressive drivers (what they say about Penang drivers is True!), but otherwise it was a pleasant weekend. There were plenty of pretty buildings to drool on and plenty of yummy food to feast on.

Penang is... beautiful. Thank you company for the (sponsored) trip, thank you Fung for the time and tour, thank you Ailee for everything (HUG) and sorry YS/WM didn't get to catch up with you guys much.

Did I mention, Penang is... beautiful?

4) Football Jack
Jack was on Kesas highway on the way to Cheras when he saw an amazing sight - hordes of cars, van, motorbikes proudly trailing full-sized Selangor flags. The drivers and passengers were clothed and wrapped in yellow red jerseys, bandanas and what nots.

The sight was overwhelming. Not the flags waving proudly out of the cars, but the grinning eager faces in the cars, the thumbs up each Selangor-clad car gives another it passes. Stranger-to-stranger but united with a common passion. PASSION.

Here was I struggling internally a silly minorly-depressed head (what with amazing display of human not-so-wonderful characters in the community I call family) and there outside was plain passion. Strangers smiling at each other. Passion. People happy. Passion. People doing things they enjoy, people laughing grinning joking. Passion.

So there was hope in human character. There are people out there capable of smiling grinning joking with strangers. Passion.

Honest-to-goodness my lame depression broke that day. Where's my passion? Let's ignore the annoying not-so-wonderful characters out there and reclaim some passion. Let's just get on with life.

Passion cures.