Dear Diary....

Wow, never realized that my last post was more than a year ago. Saying I have been busy is an understatement or I could say it's a lousy excuse I guess. Lots have happened for the past 17 months. I have a new status, a new job role (though I'm still in IBM), know much more people, doing more stuff, the list goes on and on.

First things first, on my personal life, I'm engaged! Yes, I'm married to my princess whom I've been together with for the past 12 years. We got engaged on the 20th of December 2012 (20-12-2012), not bad huh? Can't believe that it's been 12 years since we've been together. That fairy-tale-like story of us meeting in a Scout/Girl Guide gathering, meeting on just based on pure luck, was the best thing that happened to me. I was just a small town kid and she was an "uptown girl" (mind me, I'm from Batu Gajah, small town south of Ipoh, while she really IS from Ipoh). It took some teenage anxiety to really ask her out, and the rest was history. 12 years later, we got engaged in Ipoh with our family by our side. The wedding ceremony should be in next year (2014). So stay tuned for that :)

Next, we have a new addition to our family (and no, my princess is not pregnant yet...), back in 2011, we got another girl after we had our beagle Rei. The black girl below is Provence, she's half Great Dane, half mongrel, which makes her a......mongrel? Hehe, reason of getting her was because I wanted a tall dog, just like a real Dane, however, she did not meet my expectation of height, but she is smart still. And she has become my long distance walking companion.
Rei has finished her basic obedience class and also completed Pre-Novice as well. But due to lack of time, I've not been able to train her for higher levels. But I did venture in the Dancing With Dogs (DWD) abit, took part in a competition, dancing to Michael Buble's version of Spiderman. I was sweating like crazy in the ring, but it was lots of fun, though at the end I failed. Guess there's always a first time for everything right?
And in conjunction with our training group Pawsitive Friends, I've opened up another blog on discussion on our canine companions, which you can find here: Pawsitive Enforcer

Speaking of family, I forgot to mention before, that my brother got two kids, two really great looking boys, which makes me an......uncle (crap, still sad saying it :(, sigh getting old d...). Always had my doubts on whether I really wanted kids, but after having these two boys in my life, really had me thinking that having kids might not be such a bad idea afterall?

As for work, after spending two and a half grueling years under the IBM Greater China Group (GCG) finance team, I've been transferred to support the ASEAN Finance team, which means I've been assigned to a totally new team, which most of the team members are new to me. To be honest, I wasn't really too keen on it at first, being a guy that is terrible in new environments. But today, I feel that it has been for the best. I was lucky enough to have great bosses, a very energetic and active group of teammates (as friends more than teammates). There's been a large change in my lifestyle, as my last team was more into eats, this team is more to drinks, as in both coffee and alcohol (LOL). However, this team that I love, will be having some changes due to management decisions, sigh.... hope our relationship will always stay the same or go for the better in the future :)

As I step into adulthood (and also my last few years of being in my 20's and stepping into my...... 30's, that was not easy to spit out), me and the princess bought our first car and our first home. We decided on a Nissan Almera, for it's kinda low price and good fuel consumption (so called). We've been comparing prices with the locally made Proton and based on our requirements, Perodua really wasn't one of our choices. Proton's price was really attractive, as it was around RM50K to RM80K, depending on which model, the Saga, Persona or Preve. But it was just that urge that I don't want to choose Proton for it's bad feedback on customers on it's quality. At the end, another friend suggested to me on the Almera, test drove it, and felt that it was a foreign version of the Proton brand: Cheaper than the Sylphy or the Teana, quality is lower compared to them too, but feel of it was much better than a Proton car. Hence, we decided to get the Almera.

As for home, I'm proud to say, we bought a place in Setia Alam and targeting to move in around the end of the year. To those who don't know, Setia Alam is a newly developed area (it's been developed for the past 5 to 7 years, hence still considered new compared to Petaling Jaya), the developer is SP Setia, one of the big players in Malaysia's construction development industry. The place is based on an eco-friendly environment, giving it a green like place. To me, it's a good place to start a family. And as an added bonus, there's a dog-allowed park in it too. As far as I know, only the Central Park in Bandar Utama and the park in Desa Park City allows dogs, this would make the third, yay!

Since confirming on the purchase on the house, I've been drowning myself with information on house renovations, security doors, kitchen designs, sofas, electrical appliances etc.... Stuff that you'd only come about when you buy a place, I've got to admit, it's a lot of work, you have to research and understand as you can get a reasonable quotation, quality, price, package, workmanship, budget, design etc.But I gotta say, it has been lots of fun and one of the biggest things that I'm looking forward to this year :).

Well that's most of the updates I got so far. Hope that I can update my blog more frequently from now onwards, got so much to look forward this year.... So till next time.... :)