Update on AirAsia complaint

Remember my post last month about Air Asia’s online booking error which I encountered? Actually ah, there’s NO UPDATE from them until now since the last communication.

If you see their email, it says they will respond within 10 WORKING DAYS of receipt of my complaint. HARLOOOOOWWW??? Now is what month?? Isn’t 10 working days should mean that I get a response on 17th or at least 18th December? Now what date you tell me? 11th January 2007!

Then Mich was kind enough to scan and send me this article from The Star published on 9th January. I tried looking for this article via Tmnet Ebrowse online paper, but couldn’t find it. Anyway, if you can read the article, the lady face almost the same problem as me. She brought Air Asia to Consumer Claims Tribunal and only managed to secured the refund of airport tax.

In my case, my demands are easily met, I don’t want a refund. I merely want them to change my flight back to the 9.50am flight instead of the 2pm flight that their system gave me. No need any refunds! If I don’t get a respond from them by within a few more days, I will take it up to the Consumer Claims Tribunal as well, but I would only asked for the flight to be changed back to what I wanted at no cost.

For this matter, I also like to thank Sasha who actually helped me to get in touch with one of the Air Asia staff, but despite this, also did not receive any response from them on this matter.

Sat on walker – Updated

This morning I managed to catch a few snapshots of Raelynne sitting on the walker. The good thing about having younger kids than my brothers is that we get to inherit any usable baby stuff that can no longer be used by Raelynne’s cousins. Thus, the walker was actually used by my nieces before. Now that they can all walk, they don’t need it anymore. Did you know that walkers can be quite costly? I saw one before, and it costs more than RM100!

Anyway, for Raelynne, she can sit quite long in the walker and as mentioned in my previous post, she can only move backwards. We had to stuff pillows at the back and the front because there’s a big gap and we don’t want her to feel uncomfortable sitting inside it.

This morning she woke up quite early again, I think almost 5am. I only got to know later that she pass motion and my wife put her back on the bed but she did not sleep. My wife went back to sleep and I heard Raelynne whining and whining so I woke up and made her milk. Then I put her back on the bed and she didn’t want to sleep. This sleepy Daddy is so sleepy but trying to open my eyes. So I had to sing song to her, pat her bottom, pat her back, and I think it took about 20 minutes before she felt sleepy and slept back again. I think I fell asleep for awhile and was sleeping next to Raelynne. Then out of the blue I woke up and crawl back to my normal sleeping side. Then no long after that, Raelynne woke up again and started whining. Now she knows how to pull hair if she can reach, tap on our faces, etc. She’s sleeping on our bed now because she always want to turn even when she is sleeping and we worried when she turn, she would not turn back. So at least if she sleep on the bed we can see and feel when she is turning to prevent SIDS. The way she sleep, I think she can turn around and around the bed if no one prevents her from doing so.

Oh yes, she didn’t show any signs of disagreement to the porridge that my wife made based on Aunty Shannon’s ABC baby porridge recipe, which is good!

This gadget is so cool!

Oh my! I want one of this! Do you know what is it??? Or at least what do you think it is??? Its definitely in my wish list now.

Okay, I just got to know that the above high tech gadget was announced/launched by Steve Jobs today. If you know who Steve Jobs is, you would know which company he works for. Yes, Apple! And the above gadget is Apple’s new iPhone. Its an Ipod, mobile phone, surfs Internet and you can do many more with it. It runs on OS X and comes with either 4GB or 8GB capacity. Fuiyoooo… I think I can put my PDA phone shopping on hold and probably consider this in the near future instead. In fact, I actually love Apple products especially their iMac, just that they are pricey. I think this iPhone going to go beyond RM2000 price tag when it hits Malaysia. Can’t wait to see and feel the live version of this.

If you want to know more or see more photos of iPhone, head on to http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Sat on walker

I actually got to know that Raelynne sat on the walker for the first time today and managed to move around, although only backwards and not forwards. My Mum told me about it just now when I went back for lunch. Didn’t manage to take any photos yet, but rest assured, with a Daddy like this, sure got photo one, even if she doesn’t like taking photos! Hehehehe 🙂

Anti Mosquito Patch

Edited: Actually this post dedicated to Rachel cos remember one of her photos got many red patches on her cute chubby face?

I have been seeing and reading other Mummies’/Daddies’ blogs and usually we can see that their beloved kids were bitten by mozzies and sometimes other insects. I think this is a very common thing that is encountered by most parents and the country we live in. By evening time, mozzies will definitely come out and start looking for their “juicy victims”. Kids are their main target. Adults, not so much because we would squash these mozzies whenever we can.

I want to share with all parents out there that there’s actually a solution to this. We have been using this Anti Mosquito Patch for Raelynne when she was still a tiny little baby. We had mozzies problem at home and usually she would be the victim, but I must say that since she was born, we can probably count with a couple of fingers how many times she was bitten. Maybe the mozzies didn’t like her!

Anyway, this Anti Mosquito Patch can be bought at Guardian or Watsons. For East Malaysia, it retails at RM14.20 per pack of 10 round disc. It is totally safe for babies and children to use and can also be used for adults. At first when you open the well sealed package, you can smell the scent. Its basically smell like “serai” a kind of plant use for cooking. In fact, my Mum said might as well she pound the serai! Hahaha. Unlike insect sprays and so on, the smell is not irritating and totally safe. It keeps the mozzies away definitely! Since it comes with a double sided tape, you can stick it on your kids’ clothes or if you carry them most of the time, you can stick it on your own clothes.

One round disc will last for at least half a day, in fact I think it claimed to last up to 12 hours. Sometimes when we use it for Raelynne, we noticed that it also protects us, as it covers a minimum radius. Its useful especially when you go outdoors in evening or when you are having dinner in an open air restaurant.

More signs of teething

Since these few days, Raelynne has been showing some signs of teething. The most obvious one is her being pass motion few times a day. Most of the time it occurred at midnight around 1 to 2am in the morning. Then day time she pass motion a few more times again.

My wife SMS-ed me awhile ago and informed me that she now has a slight fever. I’ve checked with our paed and told him the signs and he agreed that she may be teething. I told my wife just monitor her closely, and if necessary then we shall go visit her paed and see what he says.

Oh yes, all this while she was on solid food which is usually from the baby solid food in a tin or in a box, like Nestle, Farley’s Rusks, and so on. We gave her a few different types for her to try. So yesterday my wife cooked porridge with carrots and wanted to feed her. Wow, she immediately know its different and refused to eat it! Usually, when its time to eat, she would open her mouth before the spoon was even near her mouth. But with the porridge, she didn’t open and don’t want to eat it. Perhaps she knows its tasteless eh?

EyeOnMalaysia dot com dot my

Photos taken by Jeff Ooi. All credits should go to him.

I was watching TV on Saturday night and was channel hopping. On TV3, Buletin Utama was showing this news feature on Eye on Malaysia, South East Asia’s largest or I think it was tallest, ferris wheel, which is “installed” at Taman Tasik Titiwangsa in KL. Apparently, this ferris wheel was built and will be operational for one year in conjunction with Visit Malaysia 2007. Me, being an IT-savvy person, the website URL – http://www.eyeonmalaysia.com.my which was shown all over the area surrounding the “Eye” and as well as on the gondolas. I also managed to watch the live telecast over RTM1 on the launching by our PM.

So I thought, when I have a chance, I would go and visit the website in preparation for my visit to KL from 24-27 March. Who knows I may wanna take this ride with my wife and Raelynne? (Of course I was also thinking how would Raelynne’s feelings would be? Would she cry? Would she be happy? Cos once you get in, you can’t get out until 6 rounds is over!)

Today, I managed to remember this website URL on TV into my browser, hoping to see sophisticated, nicely designed and informative website on the “Eye”.

Little that I know, I get this page instead!

WHAT? COMING SOON???? Hey, don’t you know the PM already launched the “Eye” and you have published everywhere your website URL on this ride and now when visitors want to get more information, we were given a “COMING SOON” notice. Aiyoooooo… I really hate it when people publish their URLs, say in printed media and so forth only to find out later that its under construction. If your website is NOT ready, then don’t publish it. Furthermore, the ride is already launched! By our PM some more!

Then today I read a news article in the local papers mentioning that visitors complaint about the ride. For RM15 per adult, you would get about 10 minutes ride or as mentioned, 6 rounds, but due to overwhelming responses and long queues, it was reduced to 3 rounds! Aiyoooo… *shake head*. The reason given by the operations were that the queue were too long, thus to accommodate more people they reduce the number of rounds. Then they should also reduce the fees lah!

So who wants to be the first blogger to try it out and post some review and photos? Maybe its a good ride, maybe it is not. But I’d like to know before I go to KL. 🙂

Tanjung Aru Beach outing

We brought Raelynne for a beach outing last weekend, although of course she’s too young to play on the sand and so on lah. It was just a walkabout in the Prince Philip Park which is next to the beach. It was her first time to the beach. All this while we only brought her to shopping malls and so on and never to a park. Well, she did go to the park and beach before, but that was when she was still inside Mummy’s tummy lah… hehehe. 🙂

Anyway, I think she enjoyed the walk around there. It was not so hot, but then the evening sun was shining brightly so her eyes couldn’t open big. I think she was curious about the surroundings around her cos’ she kept looking around and around and around. Probably wondering where is she. Other people who saw her was whispering among themselves saying how cute she was and some even managed to touch her some more! Eh, sometimes, I don’t really like people (especially strangers) touching her without asking our permission. Not that I am being unfriendly, but you never know lah!

As you can see, she still doesn’t like taking photos even there’s no flash. Since DSLR cameras makes a shutter sound when a photo is taken, she knows already. That sound can’t be turn off unlike point and shoot cameras.

When we were walking around, we spotted a turtle by the man made lake in the park. The turtle has been there for quite sometime already. Even before Raelynne was born and we were visiting this park, we can see this turtle swimming around. However, this time the turtle was on dry ground.

When we were walking, we spotted some stalls selling fruits. My wife, being a fan of rambutans (and also durians) was craving for some. It was RM4.00 per kilos but my wife tasted it and this type the rambutan flesh doesn’t come off from the seed. The seller keep wanting us to buy some and my wife was saying that the flesh doesn’t come off easily. While this was happening, I noticed Raelynne was looking at the seller and usually if she likes them she would smile, but I know she didn’t like them and my wife was still standing there. Then she put on a sad face and I told my wife, if you don’t like it, don’t argue anymore cos’ Raelynne want to cry already cos’ she don’t like the seller. We quickly walked away not because we were rude to the sellers but because we don’t want Raelynne to cry uncontrollably later.

The same thing actually happened when we stopped by San Francisco Coffee and the cashier was trying to talk to Raelynne and she cried also! I think she was quite selective of who she likes and who she doesn’t like. I know she likes those with smiley faces. We also noticed that lately whenever we bring her out, she would always cry at night while sleeping. I think either she was dreaming or maybe other factors involved.

88888

88,888 kilometres!

That was what was shown on my car’s ODO meter yesterday. My car is currently 4 years and few months old since I last bought it. Its nothing to shout about, but it has been quite reliable since it was bought. Its a Malaysian made car (that’s what I can afford that time), although I’d really like a Japanese car but the prices were out of my budget. In fact, I currently love the new Honda Civic. Gosh its my dream car but its cheapest price tag of RM117,000 is way out of my line. I would have to live on bread and butter for 7 years.

Anyway, back to my car, parts have been quite expensive. So far I think I have spent thousands of RM to maintain it. One of the costliest parts was the power window assembly which cost almost RM500! It was running like a new car when I changed the timing belt couple of months ago which cost around Rm500 as well.

Hopefully, car prices will drop further this year and perhaps I can consider a new car. But that would also mean the current market price of my car will also drop. Anyhow, shall live it with it until such day I can afford a better car out there.

Raelynne sitting down

This is a backdated post actually, but not very long, only two days ago. I have been quite busy since early this week plus some other work problems that I have encountered that placed me in a lowly mood. Need some kind of motivation to boost me up again.

Anyway, Raelynne can sit quite well now although we need to put cushions on both sides so that she don’t fall off either left or right. She can sit quite long as well, even longer if the television is turned on. Sometimes she can pay so much attention to the television that she doesn’t bother what people talk to her.

We also noticed that she now sucks her thumb. Before she sucks her other fingers but rarely her thumb. So far, in terms of teething, can feel some rough feeling on her gums but then there weren’t much signs of any teething symptoms. If don’t have even better!

I think its been a while as well since she take photo with Mummy, you know lah, she still afraid of my camera, but I can see some improvements already. Jazzmint suggested to hide somewhere and take her photo, which I did, hahahaha. But I didn’t like the quality of the shots! I think my camera is still quite big so even I was hiding behind the cushions, she spotted me.

Using munchkin for the first time

After receiving the munchkin from Aunty Shannon last month, Raelynne only got to use it for the first time yesterday. That’s because we did not have anything for her to munch since we received it… 🙂

Yesterday, she used it not only once, but twice in a day! First we gave her a papaya to munch. At first we thought she didn’t like it because of her facial expression, but I guess it took her a while before she acquired the new taste of a papaya. Then later in the evening, we gave her a banana to munch. It was an immediate love at first sight for her because once she saw the munchkin again, she automatically open her mouth. Nowadays she knows very well about food. Everytime we eat something, she would get excited and opens her mouth. Even when my wife and I were eating ice cream, she kept looking and looking and showing the face like “Daddy, I wanna eat too! I wanna eat too!”

Sorry little Raelynne, wait till you get older first, then Mummy and Daddy will buy you ice cream to eat. For now, you just have to stick to your baby food and some fruits.

Didn’t take any photo due to her closing her eyes, so managed to take a video or two with my wife’s mobile phone.

Happy New Year 2007!

Happy New Year 2007!

For the first time this year, my wife and I slept through. Hehehe. Not like previous years, we were still awake by 12am. This year, totally couldn’t care less about it as we were all tired and sleepy. Having a baby around is really different. Everything is happening around them.

Anyway, the last day of year 2006 was spent at my in law’s place. The photo above was took before we left the house, inside the car. My wife put on the head cover on Raelynne, my goodness, she looked absolutely so cute in it! The last time she used it for a very short period of time was when she was still a little baby. I liked it so much when she wears that hat. That was one of the better photos taken because if you see the next photo below, you will know why.

Apparently, Raelynne is still afraid of my big fat black camera. See, this time she really use all her means to close her eyes. Even I did not use any flash for all the photos, but once she hear the click click sound on the camera, she will close her eyes or even before I take any of her photos she will close her eyes. I guess Daddy have to go and buy a point and shoot camera already. A small sized one so that I don’t miss out any moments that I cannot capture with my DSLR camera.

Anyway, Raelynne met her cousin brother for the first time since she was born. Yes, first time. There’s a long story behind it, but I will leave it as it is. The last time I blog about my wife’s nephew was way back in May. The photo above was taken yesterday. He still looked the same although maybe slightly thinner than the last time we saw him.

Well, I hope I can take more of Raelynne’s photos with her cute little hat… hehehe.

Calendars and organizers

I noticed that this year, I have received only one or two calendars. No organizers or planners. Usually in the previous years, these items will come by middle of December. Suppliers and friends would give you one. However, I noticed that this year, unless you ask for it, then you don’t get any!

Usually a table calendar would really come handy on the desk. Although with Microsoft Outlook and any other applications, you can get calendars, but a normal printed calendar is still the best. I would have at least one on my working desk and one at home. I used to receive this big table planner where you can use it as a table cover and you can write your appointments or any important dates on it. Nowadays its non existent! When I asked some of the suppliers, they said its too costly to print them. I tried to look for one in the stationary shop, but even with money you can’t buy them cos’ there are no where to be found.

Eh, anyone of you got jalan to this table planner ah?

Looking back at 2006

The year 2006 was quite an eventful year for most of the family here. Many things (happy and sad) have happened for the past 12 months. We are just few days away from a brand new year 2007, which would mean a brand new start for most of the people. Let me just briefly sum up month by month for year 2006.

January 2006

• Chinese New Year was quite gloomy due to the fact that we found out the baby (Raelynne) my wife was carrying was suspected to have spina bifida occulta. The world seems to fall apart from the heart breaking news.

February 2006

• Flew to Kuala Lumpur to attend my wife cousin’s wedding and at the same time, seek third opinion from a gynae specialized in 3rd level ultrasound scan in Gleneagles Ampang.
• Was relieved and happy to find out that the 3rd level scan results positive and the specialist said that it is very unlikely that the baby has spina bifida occulta. We were back to our cheerfulness.

March 2006

• My wife entered the 5th month pregnancy stage.
• Regular reviews and checkups.

April 2006

• My wife entered 6th month pregnancy stage.
• Regular reviews and checkups.

May 2006

• My wife entered 7th month pregnancy stage.
• Regular reviews and checkups.

June 2006

• Final preparations for Raelynne’s birth in July.
• My wife entered 8th month pregnancy stage.
• At 36 weeks, a day after the regular review, my wife said no movement detected from the baby. In the end, had a c-section to deliver Raelynne on 22nd June 2006 at 5.07pm.
• Raelynne went back home 2 days after delivery.

July 2006

• Raelynne celebrated her full moon!
• Sleepless nights for parents.
• Daddy’s 1st working anniversary with his company.

August 2006

• No major events. Raelynne developing normally.
• Raelynne turned 2 months old.

September 2006

• My one and only Grandmother left, passed away peacefully on 2nd September.
• My wife’s first birthday celebration with Raelynne.
• My first’s birthday celebration with Raelynne.
• Raelynne turned 3 months old.
• My nephew, Ryan, turned one years old and had the same birthday as me.

October 2006

• My niece, Roxy, was born! Raelynne has a mei mei and becomes a che-che (sister).
• Raelynne turned 4 months old.
• Raelynne started to take solid food.

November 2006

• Roxy celebrated her full moon.
• Raelynne turned 5 months old.
• Raelynne started to turn.

December 2006

• Raelynne can turn successfully.
• Raelynne had her first highest fever ever at 39.4C
• Daddy and Mummy celebrated 2nd Anniversary with sicky Raelynne.
• Raelynne is teething.
• Raelynne’s first Christmas celebration and Christmas presents.

Wow, seems like 90% is about Raelynne for the whole year. Yeah, with the one and only daughter around, of course everything revolves around Raelynne. It has been quite a good year except some ups and downs here and there.

What to expect in 2007?

• Plans to move into our own apartment (or maybe build a house on an empty piece of land?)
• Thinking of changing car… hmmm… but that would mean more liabilities incurred.
• Raelynne’s first aeroplane ride in March 2007.
• Raelynne sitting down, then walking? Wow! Can’t wait!
• Raelynne’s 1st birthday!
• Save up more money and probably take up more investment plan for Raelynne’s future ie. education
• Settling off more debts/loans/liabilities and aim for financial freedom.
• etc etc etc etc etc.

We hope the rest of you would have a fruitful year 2007 as well. Hope to meet some of the blogging Mummies (and Daddies) next year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2007!

New Dell Widescreen Monitor

I mentioned last two weeks that I have ordered a new Dell Ultrasharp 20″ Widescreen LCD monitor for my home use and it finally arrived last Friday, just in time for Christmas.

I have been looking for a LCD monitor for quite sometime already but never got around to buy it until recently. The purchase is just the right time as my 8 years old CRT monitor is going to be faulty soon from the symptoms its giving. Anyway, the new monitor arrived in three boxes. One contained the LCD monitor, one for the additional soundbar that I ordered and funny thing is, they provide the power cable in a separate box instead of inside the LCD monitor.

I hooked up the monitor to my computer and started the configurations to get the proper display resolutions. Dell mentioned that it should be in 1650 x 1050 pixels resolution. Luckily my video card was able to support this mode and it was up and running after I installed the Dell monitor drivers to get that resolution. I also connected the monitor to a Digital Video Input (DVI) port instead of the normal VGA connectors. DVI will give you better resolution because it does not need to convert to analog signals compared to the VGA connectors. DVI port is quite common now in new video cards. Before it used to be a luxury to have a video card with DVI port.

Anyway, you all know how the monitor looks like in my previous post, so for this post, I took the picture what the monitor can display and how good it looks. Other reasons why I took this photo without any lighting is because my daughter was sleeping 🙂 As you can see, its really sharp and bright. When Dell call it ultrasharp, its really what they claim to be. I have totally no complaints about this monitor and worth my investment. I even tried plugging in the monitor to the dvd player and it works! It can support picture in picture as well, meaning I can watch DVD and see my desktop at the same time.

With a widescreen, you can see more things horizontally. I can open two browser windows side by side as well. It is sometimes useful for web development because I can view the codes and preview the web page on the browser side by side.

If you are looking for a new LCD monitor, you can consider Dell, but keep a watchful eye on the pricing because it goes up and down and you need to buy it at the right time right price. I just found out that the price for this monitor has shot up to RM1,999!