ARCHer

It's been a while since I last visited this board. Though this discussion is not that current, it is certainly interesting enough, so I'll pen my own opinions. As a father of 1 daughter (and soon to have another addition... gender still unknown yet), I can tell you that nothing beats the joy of going home and seeing your daughter run towards you and hug you. My daughter is just under 16 months old, and she hasn't start to talk yet. But she does know how to say "Daddy" (which makes my wife rather jealous), and the feeling of her calling me daddy and hugging me is one of the nicest emotion. Yes, it is not easy having a child, much less more than one. My wife and I are still plagued by the occasion night cries of our daughter, and many a times, I walk into the office bleary-eyed and lack of sleep. But the moment I start talking (to my colleagues) about my daughter, you can see the happiness radiating from my face. Perhaps it was harder for my wife. After much consideration, she decided to quit her job, but not before trying to work part-time from home. It's difficult to juggle having to work and looking after the baby, and we had a prolonged episode of maid problems. Though my wife is not exactly the career-women type, she does miss a lot of her office interactions, which she tried to fill by calling me frequently in the office. Mind you, it is taxing looking after a hyperactive child. People used to say it is easier looking after a daughter than a son, but they probably have not seen my daughter. My mother said that when I was young, I was very hyperactive, but compared to my daughter, my daughter is the master and I'm like several generations behind. I try to do my part whenever I am home. That means taking the night feed (i.e. the last feed before sleep), and on weekends, all the feed. This not only give my wife some break, but also allows me to bond with my daughter. I always tell people that this is the thing that keep me sane, and gets me through a dreadful work week... looking forward to the weekend. If anything, I only have one regret... that of not getting married earlier and having a child. I'm over 40 and my daughter is less than 2. I will probably spend my retirement days helping her with her O levels.... as well as the 2nd one with his/her PSLE..... 3rd one? I want, but fear that time is not on my side.

I take just less than 10 minutes to iron each shirt. Since I wear business shirts 4 days a week (Friday is dress-down day, and I wear polo t-shirts), I take under 1 hour to complete the ironing. For those who have problems ironing, the best means of ironing is to iron your shirt is when it is almost dry. The hot iron, when in contact with the little moisture left on the shirt, will result in a very well pressed shirt. However, those who don't sit and wait for the shirts to be half dry can use one of the following: a) steam iron; b) water spray on the shirt; c) iron-on spray (e.g. Kiwi, Easy-On etc.). If you ask me to rate, I would say that a damp shirt is the easiest to iron, follow by the use of iron-on spray. P.S. I've had loads of ironing experience. I was 16 years old when I started ironing my elder brothers' army uniforms. In those days, the uniforms have to be heavily starched.

This is not only getting off topic, but also breaching the forum rules. Anyway, back to the topic of refinancing. If you want to know if it is worthwhile refinancing the car, just do the following comparison. Assume that when you first bought the car, you took out a 5-year loan, and you are required to pay $X per month. After 2 years, if you want to refinance the loan, you may have to pay $Y per month for the remaining 3 years. If X > Y, then you should refinance your loan. If X < Y, then you should not refinance your loan. Depending on interest rate movements, it can be worthwhile to refinance your loan. In fact, the simplest way of refinancing the loan is to call up the bank/finance company that you are currently taking a loan from, and tell them that you are considering refinancing your loan. If interest rates have moved down sufficiently, they will do the refinancing for you. That's because from the bank/finance company point of view, it is better to retain you as a borrower than for you to move to another bank. As an anecdotal evidence, both my elder brother and younger brother refinanced their car loans. I think they end up with savings of between $40 to $80 per month for 3 years.

Errr.... photo is of xia0xue and son, not zeny.....

While in many cases, chicken pox seems like a mild infection, it can potentially lead to some very serious complications. In the US, some 100 people die from chicken pox infection every year and infants have a higher risk of death than young children. Having chicken pox vaccination also reduces the potential spread of the disease i.e. it's not just about preventing your child from developing chicken pox, but also preventing other children from catching it. Also, while chicken pox vaccination does not necessarily offer total immunity from the disease, its been documented that should vaccinated children develop them in their later life, the symptoms are usually not that severe. P.S. My daughter just turned 1. After weighing all the pros and cons, I decided to have her vaccinated against chicken pox.

You can always choose BMW....... Bus MRT Walk (Apologies to VR Zone forum...... )

If you look at it on a macro basis, the 'problem' is that there is a lot of liquidity in the financial markets. The liquidity is finding its way into various markets, such as China, India, Taiwan, Japan etc. Singapore is part of the 'Asian bloc' and will feel some of the spillover inflow of liquidity. The flushed liquidity is causing a surge in asset prices in many Asian economies. Should Singapore do a capital control style policy to prevent the influx of liquidity and stem the rising asset prices? Of course not. Singapore needs to have an open economy (or at least seen to be promoting an open economy). Price control measures on asset prices is likely to have adverse impact on Singapore's economy in the long run.

12 June? Mine was 12 June 2005!

I don't know about other hotels, but for PanPac, they allow us to play our own music. Which was what we wanted because we wanted to play ballroom and latin music so that our guests can do ballroom and latin dancing.

Welcome to Renotalk. Sounds like an audiophile to me. I'm a bit deaf on one ear, so I won't be able to help you much with your audio equipment. Enjoy your stay here.

All this talk about wedding march-in song.... I now remember the title of the song we used..... Shower Me With Your Love.....

We used him for the studio/outdoor shots only (which is the package offered by BV). We thought of using him for AD, but his cost is too high. We could have used his tu di, which is cheaper, but decided against it. Why? On AD, our focus will essentially be on following the customs, practices etc. Things will 'play out' on their own, so we just need a photographer that is able to capture the moment. For studio shots, it is more of 'pose' shots, so someone like Chris would have the eye/experience to capture the poses. Our AD photographer is a friend of my wife, who had done her glamour shots previously. Franky, we are very happy with him. His cost is cheap, and he is experienced enough with the AD customs to be able to tell us what we should do and so on. He gave us all the jpeg files on CDs (some only gave limited no. of shots), and he chose I think 200 photos to be developed and put into a normal photo album (all AD shots). Chris' album is the standard wedding studio type of album. I think the package BV bundled was for 30 shots but we upped it to 34 shots. Sorry. No online samples from us. Chris has an online gallery at www.chrisling.com.sg. I think one of my wife's photo is still in that gallery.

No lah. It was part of Bridal Veil's package. We went by Chris Ling before and was impressed with his work, but his package was even more... err... impressive. When we went to BV and found that they have a package with him, we took up that package, which we thought is very worth it. Chris is a great photographer, and as a novice photographer myself, I really admire his work. Put my own shots to shame. Only thing is... I have the 24-70 lens, while he has the older 28-70 lens.

Yeah lor. Don't want to admit old also cannot.... Looks like mine too.... okay... looks like a slimmer version of mine. Actually, for guys, there isn't a lot of variation. I also have white shirt with black top button and black shirt with white top button. Did you have to pay extra for the waist coat? I did.... cost me $150 for a small piece of cloth.... I see. We went with Chris Ling and went to some of the places you mentioned (Art museum, Fort Caning etc.).

That's the way. My wife didn't have preference for many things (e.g. lighting, decorations, themes etc.), but she wanted the march-in song to be special. In the end, I let her choose the song. It wasn't a song that I have heard of, and I cannot remember the title. Funny thing is whenever i hear it on the radio now, I will know that it is is *the* song.