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Welcome back…

I know you have been faithful readers.

See? You’re smiling. Stop denying it. You love my blog, don’t you?

It has been a crazy month. I’m part of a small team of three and two of my colleagues went away – one to Turkey and another to reservist so he could help weed out terrorist. I was, of course, left all alone to take on some good amount of work that, well,  came all at the same time. Screw Murphy. Hate that guy.

So it’s December and everybody’s in a holiday mood. I wish I was too, but it’s not quite easy with a fucking noisy neighbour living right upstairs. They make so much noise and vibration by dragging furniture, slamming their doors and let their kids run about into the wee hours that even my window grilles rattle at times. After approaching them three times and calling the cops once, I decided to approach them one last time which ended in a yelling session, with the typical remark from these inconsiderate bastards like “this is my house, I’ll do whatever I want” or “go buy a condo“. Things improved a bit after the yelling, but it still happens. When the night’s all quiet, these sudden bumps and squeaks really make you to jump.

So it seems nothing really changed in 2009 other than my marital status and an empty bank from a property purchase and renovation. It’s time to work out something new in 2010. My public list of items goes like this:

• Get back on track with some research/dev type projects. I’ll be meeting an NUS professor before 2009 ends, so I’ll post an update here.
• Learn to cook now that I’ve got a kitchen to myself. I’ve also promised to post some of my successful attempts out of many other unsuccessful ones.
• Get the wedding banquet done.
• Build new sources of revenue. I’ll start small, but aim big.
• Get back to flying R/C occasionally as a hobby. I’ve stopped flying for the entire of 2009 without even realizing it.

And of course, before 2009 ends, here’s a short to do list.

• Pack up the study room. It’s in an absolute mess now.
• Get another two sets of Wii Remote + Nunchuck since the two I ordered from HK over a month ago didn’t arrive at all.
• Get my old Cello bows rehaired. Already sent and will only be done in January 2010.

Renovation has officially completed; we made our final payment last Thursday and the final touches were done yesterday. All the furniture are in as well. Mode Studio didn’t screw up and delivered the remaining furniture as scheduled.

I pay a lot of attention to detail and there were some minor issues with the renovation (as usual). Carpentry, plumbing and electrical works needed personal supervision but overall we rate our interior designer highly for their design creativity and project management. We are especially pleased with their flooring, painting and solid surface works.

I’ve been very busy but I will post some photos of the completed work soon.

Work as usual, hamsters are still alive and kicking. I’m trying to find some time to pick up my R/C hobby again as the sloping season’s back but my time has been all tied up by the house renovation. Cleaning a new house has proved to be quite a chore as the dust settles each day.

I have also attempted cooking. BTW, it’s not exactly cheap for two persons to cook at home. Breakfast is easy but I haven’t been very successful with my first dinner dish. However, the wife makes nice Chinese soup dishes!

It’s just one more month before the year comes to an end. Time to close yet another chapter and kick start 2010. It will be a very exciting new year!

The battery on my MacBook is dying so I decided to just take it apart. You know, nothing stops my curiosity. I love taking things apart ever since young, though I wasn’t able to put most of them back together… last time. Hopefully, some things improved.

Of course, I’ve paid for my curiosity with nasty shocks – just last week, I got a nasty zap from a flash capacitor inside my Canon Powershot A70. I got so pissed I just shorted the capacitor to get rid of the current in it. Some months ago, I got super freakin’ zapped by the household 240V AC current while taking apart a Sun PSU. The house tripped.

Actually, this MacBook belongs to my sis, but she hated it so much so I swapped my laptop with hers, so technically, I’m taking apart her battery.

Anyway, here’s the takeapart journey. Small torx screwdrivers are needed to remove all ten screws on both sides of the battery.

Tiny torx screws at the sides of the MacBook battery.

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Earlier this evening, the air-con guy called me up and asked to meet up at my new house to discuss how we would love run the array of ugly thick gas pipes around the house. Since the electrical wirings are out, there’s no light in the house and we needed one.

I keep an old Li-Po (Lithium Polymer) battery from my RC heli in the back of my car so I could use it with a 12V flourescent tube whenever the occassion requires. I’ve been using it for quite some time already and never had to recharge the 12V pack for almost a year.

I brought the battery and flourescent light along to meet the air-con guy. We kept talking until the lights went out and drained the battery well beyond its safe minimum capacity and it puffed like a pillow.

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