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.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

3-Week Jack

Jack gets a 3-week break from daily driving to KL hell with my 3-week work respite. I'm off to get/got married (pardon my tenses. I'm post-blogging and confusing myself).

What a hectic 3-weeks!

Week 1 - Pre-wedding mayhem
1.1 Jack makes multiple trips to LCCT (Low cost terminal. Now Everyone Can Fly!) for scattered relatives arrival.
1.2 Jack makes a cheap-booze dash to Seremban.
1.3 Jack zaps around running various wedding errands.
1.4 Jack makes very regular pilgrimage to saree-blouse man (the many trips is largely due to 1.1)
1.5 Jack ventures (once) into KL for a last-minute thing and meets THE INCIDENT.

Week 2 - Wedding & dinner & dinner
Sunday - Noon wedding at NUPW Hall in PJ
Sunday - Return home ceremonies for both houses in Subang
Monday - Off to Damai Laut Resort (Perak), one-night stay wedding gift from family friend
Tuesday - Wedding Dinner reception hosted by car-man's parents at home in Sitiawan, Perak
Wednesday - Back to Subang. Wade through wedding debris and pack for trip.
Thursday - Flight to Sandakan, Sabah.
Friday - Parents-in-law anniversary, dinner hosted by brother-in-law in Sandakan
Saturday - Wedding Dinner reception hosted by my parents at stilts-on-sea seafood restaurant in Sandakan.
Sunday - Flight home to Subang. Wade through leftover wedding debris and pack for long trip.
Monday - Drive to Kuantan (2 cars. Don't ask. I just feel I need my wheels.)

Week 3 - Rest in peace and quiet
Jack spent the final week in Kuantan. I brought Jack to Kuantan to aid in my mission to explore the town to decide if I would uproot my life (friends, job, routines, familiarity) in KL and restart here.

The decision? Still pending. I explored as much too know there's a good-enough Popular and a lot of decent Kopitiams. And that Kuantan is a very nice town. That's as far as I got, cos despite my many plans I ended up sleeping away the past weeks' fatigue instead.

I felt very depressed having to return to KL and its 3 lane roads choked with cars and noxious carbon emissions. Or maybe I'm just depressed having to return to work this Monday. Boo hoo.

Jack Tax

Jack's legality was due to end on the day I was due to legally change my taraf perkahwinan. So off we went to visit the nice insurance lady and the banks again.

One year insurance : RM 1, 046.oo
One year road-tax: RM 126.50
Bank processing charges: RM 15.00

Pre-wedding Jack

Mileage : 42712 km

What's with the silence? Jack not dead (yet), no worries.

He's alive and well and for the past weeks have been busy zooming around doing wedding-iy stuffs. Around KL and Seremban and Melaka hand-delivering wedding invitations. To the tailor(s). To the garland-makers. To the hall. To the food-tasting. To the planner's office. To the registrar uncle's house. To the wedding officiator meeting*. To the bridal shop. To the bridal house**.

There is yet more activity in store for Jack as we (eagerly) count the days towards D-Day. But there might not be much mentioned here. I've got enough wedding-iy stuff in my face and enough chorus of voices greeting me 'How's the wedding preparation?' everywhere I go to not want to blog about it. I believe you will understand. =)

So please come for my wedding ya***. I will be very pleased if you guys can attend and witness this exciting day of my life. If you haven't received an invitation yet buzz me (sorry hehe).

* Registrar - conduct marriage registration legally. Officiator - conduct ceremony according to custom.

**Got diffrence la. Bridal shop is that person who put powder on your face, knots your hair with flowers and ties your saree so it looks better than everyone elses. Bridal house is the one with lots of white wedding dresses displayed at the window.

*** Don't be like some persons (unfortunately blood-related) who is waiting for me to beg and plead for her to come and show her bitchy face and spoil my wedding. Hahaha. I would be pleased if you will come attend my wedding because you are genuinely pleased for me to have found my man whom I wish to spend the rest of my life with.

Jack on the Road

Funky stuff you sometimes find on the road.

What's that? Let's go have a closer look.

Looks like its a spideman..

It's a poor spiderman all tied up and left to die!

Rude Jack

Stat your Monday with ... rudeness & 'nice' people!

One of my top grouses is people who cut queues. Those damn farkers who cut a mile long of cars waiting patiently and selit in at the last minute. at the junction and contributes MORE towards the long wait. For Jack's daily commute this is especially annoying at the Jalan Kinabalu - Jalan Sultan Ismail turnoff.

Today, a very nicely maintained Honda cut in front of Jack right at the junction. This being my pet grouse + it's a bloody Monday and I don't wanna go to work so damn early but I have to cos traffic is a killer + traffic is already a killer with Jack having been on the road for close to an hour + a weekend of being heckled about wedding wedding wedding (xxxx - a lot of unsaid words here that I cannot put up for political reasons), I did the KL road-conduct manners thing - flashed the stupid bugger (sb) and waved a cute little finger.

At which the sb took offence (oh, he was so doing the correct thing all this while) and started staring cock at me through his rearview mirror. He slowed down and started crawling, which is extremely intelligent of him considering he cut queue to save his precious time and now he's spending it wisely by trying to annoy me. Hahaha.

Kereta cantik tapi tak pandai bawa. Kesian. Maybe not sb's fault also, maybe his mak bapak forgot to teach him manners.

Anyway he put up his staring game till I took of my sunglasses and stared back at him, at which sb dropped both his gaze and frown. Maybe he's a God-fearing Melayu man, cannot make eye contact with females. So pious. He unfortunately took the same route as I did (maybe he thought I was tailing him into the inner roads) but went further that me as I turned off to park. Which gives him the advantage of knowing where Jack is lepaking right now.

Let's hope Jack has all his wheels and has not acquired a brilliant new scratch by the time I go back today. Couldn't care less, though. I hope his balls get infested with maggots and his eyebrows catch fire in a hilarious freak accident. Happy Monday!

Guzzler Jack

Mileage : 39894 km

I've been told countless times that a Spectra is an oil-guzzler.

I never paid much attention before as .. err.. well it was not much of a concern. But now that I'm sitting bored in Jack daily as I commute to work I've been noticing things more. Like, the odometer is quite interesting to watch. And it's quite fun to reset at every full tank to see how far Petronas Primax fuel can go (okay, so I've not made this a habit before. So?)

Jack clocks in barely 380km town-driving for a ful tank of ~RM75.
Wow. Time to re-do my finances.

Further Spectra fuel consumption discussion here

UPM Jack

Jack visits Universiti Pertanian Malaysia (UPM) to get little bro registered last Sunday.
The resgistration process was quick and very well coordinated. I was impressed with the internal traffic management.

Step 1: Park car at designated 'Tempat Letak Kereta Ibu-Bapa'


Step 2: Take bus to Kolej Kelima. There are dedicated buses for the respective colleges, frequent enough not to be crowded even with the mountains of bags and pails and teddy bear (?).


Step 3: Register.


Step 4: Get hostel key and 'check-in'.

Rajin-rajin belajar, adik. Enjoy campus life!

Jack Stuck

I woke up late this morning and Jack got stuck in traffic for 1 hour 10 mins.
With amazing luck I managed to replicate Jack's action - by getting stuck in the office lift with two just-as-lucky colleagues.


Have a bad day, folks.

Japan GT (no Jack)

Jack gets car-napped to Seremban while I spend the day at Sepang ogling at people ogling at Japan GT babes.


GT cars lining up at the pit lane


On the starting grid

GT babes

Grid Activity

So cute. Michelin Man!

Alex Yoong after A1 demo run

Guys from work: does this Intergra Cup driver look familiar?

Decision Jack

Mileage: 38806 km

This morning while getting off Jack after parking him I noticed my sunglasses lying limp on the dashboard. I realised it has been ages since I last used them... Jack reaches the office as the sun is just beginning to shine and leaves office when the sun has long retired.

This sad observation just adds another pebble to the decision scale. For the past 2 months I've caught myself frequently grousing about working in KL. Since Jack complaining week to week makes a boring read, and is making me a tediously boring person, I've decided to make a decision about doing something to solve this 'problem'.

Step 1: Decide to do something [DONE]
Step 2: Decide what it is that needs to be done.

I have on hand two possible solution. Either I change address of residence, which is not too easy considering I just bought the house, or I change address of working place, which is not easy because of.. of... I like the work *choke.

Between dismantling my Ikea shelves or dismantling two-and-a-half years of work history, the choice seems obviously obvious.

Sareed Jack

Mileage: 38450 km

Jack makes a trip to Seremban for wedding saree(s) shopping.

A cousin of mine runs a home business selling selected sarees brought in direct from India. We spent 4 hours shifting through a roomful of choices, sitting comfortably on the floor enveloped in their kind hospitality.





































We left happily with our purchase of 5 sarees and 5 punjabi suits, including a wedding saree.
* Wedding saree not shown. Pantang.

Jack Holidayed

Mileage: 37962 km

I LOVE SCHOOL HOLIDAYS!
No jams! 45 mins to work - ON FEDERAL HIGHWAY!

Which means I'm at the office now at 7.45am. A bit too early :p

Subang-Kuantan Dash Jack

Jack makes a spur-of-the-moment trip to Kuantan.

11.00 am - Leave Subang
Journey was pleasant, not much cars on the road. Had cousin Kesv keep me company and join me in sampling the food at Temerloh rest stop (not recommended, duh).

2.45 pm - reach Kuantan
Whee! Get to spend some time with car-man. Rindu.

6.17 pm - leave Kuantan
At car-man's insistence left before the day gets dark. He wanted me to clear the Kuantan-Karak stretch before night, at least. People say the highway got 'things', but actually is just so staright and boring that bad single-car crashes happens often. Plus a lot monkeys cross road without looking first. I saw two-and-half monkey corpse on the way back.

10.01 pm - reach Subang
Smooth journey, except for a slight (45 mins) crawl before the tunnel. On the clear streches of highway I noticed no one barely went over the 120km/h. (I didn't either, I promised I wouldn't and strained my neck keeping the speed. Try driving at a slower than normal speed - you'll feel your neck straining to get ahead. Inertia maybe.)

Anyways I was quite surprised, nice roads and no hell-speeding. Was it because the cars were mostly filled with families on holidays? Or was it just the laid-back style of driving that city people cannot understand? Or was it city people but driving slower cause it's ho-li-day? Hrm...

7.5 hours spent in the car to spend 3.5 hours with car-man.
Worth it? You bet.