Road Trip!

My brother, Brat, and I will be taking a road trip to our hometown. It's not such an easy task considering our hometown is not on the same island as where we live. In fact, the trip will take approximately 17 hours, and that's assuming everything goes according to plan. The trip can be divided into four segments. The first leg will be a 2-hour ferry ride, followed by a 3-hour drive, then a 4-hour ferry ride and the last leg will be a leisurely(?) 5-hour drive to our parents' house. The remaining 17 hours are spent waiting for ferries to arri…

Another party, a bit of ranting, barbecue and "the revelation"

For somebody who is a self proclaimed anti-social I seem to be attending a lot of work related parties lately. Just the other week, our department scheduled a welcome dinner for the 2 new guys that will be joining us in the department (the *German guy* who just left was their previous manager so they will be reporting to my boss). This get-together was also supposed to be an opportunity for the department to do some "bonding", whatever that means. The invitations (actually it was an MS Outlook meeting request) were sent out early the previous …

Of reptiles and organizing photos

Reptile Originally uploaded by Jepster . Since I seem to be posting a lot of animal pictures recently, I would like to add this to the series. I have no idea whatsoever what it is beyond that it's a reptile and it's green. Just like the picture of the turtles, I took this picture when I was in Berlin. It was kind enough to approach the side of the glass enclosure and pose for the camera. This reminds me of another lizard photo I have somewhere. I will try to search for it and post it here. One of my biggest problems is how to effectively c…

The Amazing Askal Archon

Info booth Originally uploaded by Jepster . Woohoo! Askal Archon, my super hero character in the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) City of Heroes ranked 3rd in the Top Victors in Steel Canyon for the month. Yeah you heard me right. Not for the week or for the day, the whole month! I feel so happy. I know it's strange. It's like I have this feeling of accomplishment. My hours spent vanquishing dastardly villains finally paid off. Sorry, it occurred to me that you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. To put it …

More Turtles

Turtles Originally uploaded by Jepster . Turt's Relatives? They could very well be. Several red eared sliders from Berlin zoo. When I first saw them, I was surprised on how big they were. Turt was significantly smaller back then but now she's about as big. The turtle habitat at the zoo inspired me to buy Turt a bigger tub to give her more space to swim about. I also put in more rocks and a halogen basking light for her to dry on.

Booo!

Pumpkin Originally uploaded by Jepster . It's fast approaching halloween and I thought it would be nice to put up some decorations. Every year, kids from the compound go house to house knocking on doors to ask for treats. Notice the "No Solicitors" sign on the top of my door? It's my way of saying: "Have a happy halloween kids but sorry no treats from me ." Actually I will be out of town for the holiday weekend but the kids probably don't know that and would think I'm keeping all the goodies to myself. I was in th…

Purple Sky

Purple Sky Originally uploaded by Jepster . An interesting picture of the sky I took a few years back. The central cloud formation looks like a bird in flight. I was in a vehicle with tinted windows which explains the purple shade. And in case you were wondering, no I wasn't driving.

Finally! A cat's blog

I am pleased to announce that Brat's blog is finally up. I have been snapping at his tail for a long time to finish it but he refused to release it untill he was fully satisfied with the overall look and feel of the site. He could have just chose a standard blog template just like what I did but noooo... he just had to have a custom built design. Oh well, cats are naturally picky I suppose. View Brat's blog at bratkun.blogspot.com . I have also conveniently placed a quick link to his website in the sidebar. For you cat lovers out there, yo…

I'm watching you!

Owl Originally uploaded by Jepster . An example of my attempts at wildlife photography.

Oktoberfest *hic* (excuse me) and balloon animals

Every October for the past 5 years or so, a german colleague hosts a beer drinking fest for the rest of the employees. We had this year's activity a few days ago which also coincided with our colleague's send off party (he's off to greener pastures so to speak). Lots of german sausages, sauerkraut, pretzels, cheeses and other dishes with weird sounding names. And of course, free flowing beer!... :) There were also a lot of activities. Beer drinking contest, armwrestling, a contest on who could pound a 6" nail on a piece of lumber the…

Earthquake! Waaaaah!!!

Last Friday evening, while I was chatting with my brother and sister through IM, a strong earthquake shook the building I was living in. The earthquake was strong enough to topple some books on my bookshelf and cause my computer table to give off a disturbing creaking sound. Probably what distressed me more was the fact that I couldn't afford a new 19" monitor at the moment (I could imagine myself using my nephew's 14" monitor with the words "comuter" scrawled at the top with a blue marker * shudder *). I immediately left the…

Not much photos

Candles by Jep via Flickr A friend pointed out that I haven't posted any new photos on this site. I have to agree with her. All the photos that you see here are in fact recycled. Most are available in my other online photo gallery. The truth is that I haven't used my camera for a very long time. I thought starting this photo blog (yes my original idea for this site was for a photo blog) would somehow encourage me to start taking pictures again. I'm looking forward to having a new digicam. That should do the trick. Hmm... perhaps I should cha…

Turt the Turtle and the great flood

I woke up the other day and found my room flooded! I have 2 pet turtles (Turt and Jr.) and I keep them in a large plastic tub with an external activated carbon/anthracite filter. Sometime in the middle of the night, the filter got clogged up and began leaking into a small pail I strategically place beneath the filter for just this situation. When I woke up the pail was full of water, but so was the rest of my flat. The submersible pump was on the bottom of the tub and it managed to suck out most of the water. The turtles were scurrying about, trying t…

Of mobile phones and work-life balance at the office

A recent activity at work made it necessary to give out my mobile number to my colleagues so they could contact me in case I am needed at the office. At first, I was a little hesitant. I wasn't too keen on people from work calling me at night or on the weekends, but they assured me that it would be used for emergency purposes only. There was an impending strike at work and they wanted a quick way to "call me in." That's when I started to get "work spam" on my mobile phone. I would get an SMS (text messages) about an after-of…