Jack has an update

Ola!

It's about time for an update. Jack thanks his loyal readers who keep visiting the site the past five (gasp! 5!) months of no new update. The site visit trackers registered quite a number of loyal visitors, thanks again.

At first I stopped blogging because that was a period of decision and changes which I'd want to keep silent. A bit no manners to be broadcasting that you threw in your letter when you know your colleagues read your blog, no? That was a sad decision and I was not up to explaining the whys and etc etc until I was really sure.

So, I quit THAT job. Why?
1) I hate driving to KL.
2) I hate KL.
3) I dislike office with politics.
4) I had the chance to be 'inspired' by a talk by the big boss.

I've always said I'll have to sell Jack if I quit my job, so that's what I did next. We surveyed and he only fetches 32K in trade in, or 40k sell ourselves via MotorTrader. 20k+ depreciation in 1.5 years... ouch.

So, I sold Jack. Why?
1) Monthly payment is RM762, which is a bit high to go with my massive book-spending habits. I got him when I was a bachelor with no priorities in life. Now I'd rather keep the money and buy a nice house with a large-enough garden space. And library space tee-hee.

2) Petrol. Petrol. Petrol. Jack is a petrol-guzzler. Time to be smarter a bit and get a lower consumption car.

3) Jack is a bit of a no use. He was bought (prior to meeting car-man) to be a comfortable family vehicle to ferry around my parents when they come down. Now with car-man having nicer bigger faster more more more comfortable company car, Jack is almost always left behind to rot in the driveway. Makes sense to keep a smaller car that at least helps in the parking problem of our crowded neighbourhood.

4) Because I've said I'll sell him if I leave THAT company. What a motivator, but this sort of made up my mind.

So Jack is sold for 35K. To my mom. (Don't laugh. They sold me the house, didn't they? And yes my family is weird, you should know that already from knowing me). Now Jack is in the paint shop getting a full plastic surgery to repair the dents and scrapes before being shipped back to Sabah. In the meantime I'm having fun with his replacement:

I'll intro her in another post.
Do visit my other project at http://bookgila.blogspot.com

Jack Rack

This is a repost.

Car-man requested to blank out key amounts. Seems Jack got a very very good discount - we owe it to the workshop not to publish the actual amounts.

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Jack recently went for surgery to fix that annoying steering rack noise. The nosie has worsened so it was high time to do something about it before anything untowards happens.

used steering rack rm ###
wiper (front) rm 26
wiper (back) rm 16
power steering fluid top-up rm 8
alignment rm 20
labour rm ###

Total: RM ###
That is equals to roughly the price of 20 standard paperbacks.
Or 30 if you buy off Borders 3-for-price-of-2 promo. huhu

Booked Jack

After the recent social over-exposure of pre + during + post wedding, I did what I've badly wanted to do for the past few months - retract from everything and everyone* and bury my head in the sand. And the best available sand to stick your head into is - books!

I went into crazy mode and dropped everything (including blogging, as you can tell) to recoup in September. My read list for September:

1 Misforture by Wesley Stace
2 Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck
3 Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists by Gideon Defoe
4 Call Me Elizabeth by Dawn Annandale
5 Pirates! In An Adventure With Ahab by Gideon Defoe
6 Identity by Milan Kundera
7 Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Impressive? Not as impressive as my book-buying binge(s!) for September. Which I will not list because no point making myself feel guilty. :-P

*everyone except delightful new hubby

Jack's Back!

Mileage: 78046 km

Jack apologizes to his regular readers for the lack of activity for the past month. The tracker registered a surprising number of visitors although the content was never updated. Jack thanks you for the loyalty!

Jack wants this tattoo!

With all the recent Jack-cidents I think Jack deserves a tattoo like this:

Jack-cident

THE INCIDENT

One day before the wedding - Jack gets agitated with pre-wedding jitters and accidentally reverses full-speed into an unlucky Iswara. We braved into Jalan Masjid India, KL to grab a last minute item. In the melee of people and cars and more people and no parking and.. and... the combined effect was bad on my nerves already frayed from wedding stress and family stress. I took a wrong turn in a car park and reversed to get back from the exit gate and CRASH.

Oops. My first thought was 'Oh no I gonna get scolding from car-man'. I came down with my newly inai-ed hand and all and inspected Jack, while the other car's people did likewise. The was no dent on Jack's rear bumper, just a barely noticebale scratch. I breathed a relief that it wasn't a bad crash - then turned to inspect the other car. Double oops. The Iswara bumper was hanging of the car, sporting a nice big happy dent.

We traded phone numbers, I told the guy (pretty decent chap) to get it fixed and I'll pay him back the damage. I didn't pay him then and he didn't insist, I'm flattered that there still is trust in this ugly city. A quick call to car-man confirmed the bumper to be around RM150 max.

He called up few days later asking I had a prefered mechanic, but since I was in the midst of travelling around for the various reception I asked him to go ahead to his usual one and let me know. He called back a day later quoting his the mechanic's assement = RM750. Wah liao. He listed some items which I politely listened to but did not understand. I then sadly gave up the intent to settle this myself and got car-man to help settle the matter.

Car-man insisted to see the car to verify the claim. We met up with Iswara guy and car-man saw the damage, look at me, shook his head, and set up arrangements to fix the car at his friends workshop. The high position of Jack rear bumper (Jack's ass, if you will) hit the Iswara's front bumper at a beautiful spot that broke his front grill that in turn broke both his light brackets, and also smashed his bumper. Ouch.

The Iswara was fully repaired at cost-price RM 530 at CSK Auto - they left the labor cost up to us to give however much. So nice, Thank you CSK Auto. Recommended for you Auto needs

CSK Auto Service Centre
25, Jalan SM11, Taman Sri Manja
6 Mile, Off Jalan Klang Lama, PJ

Cousin Sha, who was with me at the time of incident, observed - "Wah. Now we know. Spectra very strong". Hahaha. That thought did cross my mind. Poor plastic-type new Iswara. The mechanic said that the new Iswara has a good reputation for touch-and-break.

Why did I blindly reverse full speed into a stationary car? Maybe my grandma's pantang larang took effect - the bride is not supposed to leave the house in the three days before the wedding. Or maybe it's the mirror I accidentally broke the previous day - 7 more years of such bad luck! Or maybe I just needed more sleep. The accumulated tiredness would explain the TRAFFIC LIGHT KISS and the PARKING MALL SIDE SCRAPE. :P

Mrs Jack

Me and car-man on our wedding day - 20 August 2006. Thanks to all you guys who graced this wonderful day with your presence at our ceremony. =)

Notice Jack tumpang glamer in this pic.