As both my parents often travels outstation for various reasons, it's been a month now that we've catered food instead of cooking. I must admit that it's a lot more economical and tasted.. ahem.. different.
My wife's birthday which fell on the 26th was a Saturday. My initial plan was to get my brother in laws over for cake cutting. Both Isabelle and I were extra excited, hoped she would like our gifts.
Since the caterer don't send food on Saturdays, we decided to have our dinner outside. There's this Chinese Restaurant in Desa Park City that my wife wanted to try.
It's only once in a while that during special occasions that I get to take my family out for something different. No, No is not "wasting money even before you know how to earn it" is some
prying eyes who reports everything my my parents on where I go, on what I do. Please,lah. Go to the dumpster or flash your head into it. This is my life. I guess it's normal human behaviour to seek out for the tiniest mistakes of others and yet unable to see their own faults smacked right on their forehead.
It's rather tough when your little fellas are hyperactive and tends to spill some soup or drink s over.Especially this little fella.
Agree with me when i saw she's got the looks as if she's up to something?
While Isabelle is bored and not at all excited at all on the food, her brother was sound asleep.
We adjourned home after dinner for the cake cutting ceremony.
We got her a Pandan Layered cake, instead of Secret Recipe's cake we order for every single occasion.
Natalie gave mummy a hug!
then it's Isabelle's turn...
Now, the present opening time! The moment everyone is waiting for...
The look on my wife's face makes my day.. her smile... the moment she broke her smile, it says it all.
This painting was painted by Isabelle without anyone's coaching. That's make makes it special.
More special than mine....i must admit.
Happy Birthday my dearest wife... Thank you so much giving me these three beautiful children. I love you my dearest...
This is a song which I wouldn't just want to dedicate to you, but instead, to rather a song that we should live and base our life upon.
I want to live in endless love in this this live with you my dearest. You have been a beautiful, wonderful, understanding wife, and most of all for your persistence in believing in whatever that I do... I'll never fail you in life..
I love you dearest..
Tomorrow will be my wife's birthday. There is no need to go into the details as to which year was she born.
The problem is to get a better gift that is better than the previous. I've got her diamond earrings, diamond pendents, top of the line digital point and shoot camera, which I find myself using it more often than her.
I was getting restless. I've tried the classical approach, with the belief that all women love flowers... which I found out my wife was the exception...In fact, she was the one who told me flowers last only for days, that it dies off... not a good gift, if symbolism is the main purpose to begin with.
What to get? Another earring?Pendent? Aiyo! Expensive one,or.. The previous solitaire burnt a huge hold in my pocket...no... not perhaps next time!
Camera? What? She hardly uses it!
It's just tomorrow!! I watched the clock with desperation. Each click the second hand moves it sounded like 500 decibels thumbing into my eardrum.Think...think....
then..EUREKA!!
What if I make her a gift? I decided to paint her a rose. It's hand made, original, and last!
The only time available to do this is during my clinical hours, yes, while in between patient.
It's been some time since the last time I've painted. It's going to be a little rusty, but it's the heart and effort that counts, right? Though I live a life practicing science, but I enjoy it through art. Science explains that mechanism of life, but art is what give its meaning.
Not to bad,eh??Now comes to difficult part, the colouring part. One thing I've learned in art is you have only 1 chance to make it right for water colour, while in poster colour, you are still able to salvage them.
Some says, your art reflects upon the mood which you are on. Which I totally agree.
I had an unusual large crowd today. Which tends to breaks my concentration while painting.
I will listen to love tune, to get the ambiance to the loving feeling gets transferred into the work that I am making.
I would listen to this group call 2V1G
Play the music while reading the blog to feel what I am feeling right now.
As I get feel more sentimental, I continue with the drawing, with a little struggle. The last painting I did was more than 10 years ago for my parent's 3oth anniversary.
Somehow, the painting doesn't look right. It needs to be better...much better than this . Man, I feel like a teenager again, the feeling of excitement before giving your girlfriend a gift. I need to draw better, and put more heart intoit.
First....and most importantly, the right music must be right..
...ahh.. let the mood slowly builds...
As I look at her photo, the more determined I got to make the best git to celebrate not only her birthday, but our union,and together as a family. We've been through together a lot my dearest all these years.
Do you remember the day Isabelle was born?
Wasn't she the prettiest baby you ever seen?? Remember the feeling when you first cradled her, the first eye contact that you made....
The simpler painting, the stronger the message.All my attention on this one single rose.Just like in life,my attention is all on you and the family.
Every single detailed drawn carefully.....and i really took my time on this piece....
Yikes! I think I was a little slow on this piece... check out the time! Check out the date! I haven't coloured the stalk and background yet!!
Right after completed the stalk, I've decided to pain the background in blue....
Somehow, I mixed it with green, rather odd combination,eh?
The painting completed....Now. have to rush to the local frame and glass store to get it framed..
There's one 2km away from my clinic. The same glass store I go to while getting my painting for my parent's 30th anniversary framed.
There are wooden frames, plastic, and metal frames...!!! Decisions! Decisions!!
The black frame looks old, metal looks rather odd, the brown wooden frame.. now's that's a nice choice. Classy,timeless yet contemporary, and most importantly, it doesn't say, CHEAP!
--this post is removed after "someone" who's been reading my post and pays too much attention on my life rather than theirs complained. This post wasn't well accepted to certain party and had threatened to take legal action if not removed. So, in order not to be disowned by parents, the post was removed. So happy now?
I will be turning 34 by the end of the year, yet in many ways, I am still a child. Not sure whether its a good thing or not, but I often find myself behaving like a kid when dealing with my children. Especially this little munchkin.
For a child who is yet 2 year old, she is rather precocious for her age. Compared to her elder sister, Isabelle is more feminine and "ladylike".
Natalie is the kind of child who refused help while climbing up the stair, assertive in her demands, cheeky, and gets away each time she bangs Isabelle's head with the plastic toy phone.
Isabelle is the kind of daughter who loves her younger sister and brother, always hope little Natalie to love her equally and more expressive with more hugs and kisses, but instead she gets slapped around!
She would cry out of pain, but she has never blamed Natalie for being rough. She will sob and say Natalie is too young to understand the consequences of her actions. That would be the proudest moment any father could have have.
Anyway, back to the topic on the childhood within me,I've had always dream of joining the army.
But the Royal Malaysian Army, no way.
My interest with weaponry, clandestine operations by special forces, history behind the formation of these elite soldiers, war history,etc fascinates me. I've bought numerous books, visited military museums,bought DVD on real life war history, documentaries, subscribed military magazines, spent a significant amount of $$ on imported military books.
Real life military events that made it to the silver screen has got to be my famous genres in movies. Movies like,"We Were Soldiers", which dramatized the first major engagement between the US Army, lead by Lieutenant General Hal Moore, and North Vietnamese Army, lead by Lieutenant Colonel Nyuyen Hu Ann.
I collect original DVD on most war films depicting real life events. After watching the movie, I would go online to check out the facts about the story. True enough the characters depicted both on the US and the NVA side are real. I love these films not merely for the actions, but the real raw human emotions, of loss, victory, defeat, seeing your brother in arms die during battle. The variety of human emotions has never been so well and powerfully depicted in screens, except for war films.
Saving Private Ryan may not be a life event, but it's worth noting for it's originality, and show casting a balanced between the the emotional as well as actions in war.
Before the project started, the production side must have studied the the attire of both the US a well as German troops thoroughly, there is no flaw that I could find in this production in terms of authenticity of the clothing to the guns used.
If they think they did well in saving private Ryan, what about HBO miniseries Bands of Brother, which was released back in 2001.
I totally fell in love with the miniseries that i got myself their DVD version.
It simply has got to be a deal life war movie ever made. I watched it over and over again.
To me , this movie will always be a classics. The story is about a group of new recruits called EASY company, following throughout their entire training until D-Day where they as paratroopers were inserted deep within the territory line. How they're first action lead by lieutenant Winters in disabling 4 artillery guns, which until today, his tactics is still used today in the US Army text books. It has got to be one of the best miniseries I've seen so far. This movie is "my ideal kind of movie"actions,and emotions.
As a matter of fact, shamefully, i was overwhelmed with the scene where the Army discovers the abandoned concentration camp in Auschwitz.The scene was heartwarming and emotionally charged.
Part of the clip of the movie that never fails to bring out the tears in me is this scene:-
Don't forget that World War II was fighting at 2 campaigns. Europe, and The Pacific.I am sure for those who has grandparents who are over their 80s by now would remember the cruelty Japanese armed forces inflicted upon us.
We were soldier signifies a few things in life.
1. a party may won a campaign, a battle, or a fight, but ultimately, no one ever claimed to have won a war, at least with a clean consciounce in their mind.
2.Millions of lives are lost for what purpose????Till today, nobody, no intellectuals can give me a concrete comprehensible answer.
The latest Hanks-Spielberg collaboration to produce HBO's mosr expensive movie ever made, The Pacific. Fan of Ban of Brothers,you expect newer movie must be better right? Well, you're wrong. The pacific explores three individuals who had to go through WWII and let us into their emotional turmoil,psychological post traumatic element a man face post war. Now, I would call this a drama rather than an action movie.
The most recent military conflict happened in Mogadishu, Somalia, East Africa in October 1993.
I first watched the movie in cinema and the cinematography, the fightings, the actions, the sound effects as the AH-64 helicopters flew past was totally mindblowing! I actually went to watch the movie twice in the cinema, then the pirated dvd, then another pirated DVD, then an original DVD which has undergone censorship by our government. The quality was so bad that I simply could accept it! Even the pirated versions we A LOT clearer, plus what's the point of calling it original DVD when the quality is crappy and the sound system is in mono!
Unsatisfied, I bought an imported version. Yoo hoo!! I watched it over 43 times.!!!!
I was a happy customer that day! But was I satisfied? No way! I bought books, military figures that cost me nearly RM200 each!!
If you call me an extreme, boy,i am far from being on. I have books, joined the black hawk down website, and even bought a second original Editor's cut featuring 8 extra minutes unseen by any one before.
The book which depicted the conflict that occurred on 3rd October 1993.
Extended version. A collector's item.
Imported and uncensored. My in depth interest led me to purchase books on various topics surrounding military, right from hardcover important magazines on weapons, how and why Special Forces were formed, and stories of real life conflicts, which i tend to feel rather emotional after reading them.
I even bought a special edition commemorating the 60th Anniversary of victory at the Pacific front all the way from Australia.
Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden has got to be one of the most engaging book I ever read.
As I mentioned earlier, I am a fanatic when comes to guns and assault rifles. It always fascinates me how precise and well trained these special forces around the world. Some led their life with so much secrecy, and their life an clandestine operator seems fascinating.
Of all the special forces around the world, whether it;s US Army's Delta Force, US Navy's SEALs,
British SAS,... most of their weapon of choice in closed quarter battle would be the reputable Heckler and Koch MP5.
The Special Forces of the
Malaysian royal police uses MP5,
Along the as you learn more about army and weaponry, you'll realized our government is taking a bug chunk of the public's tax payers money?How? we'll come to that later!
I've had this fascination over submachine guns especially JK's MP5.
The mechanism behind MP5 is indeed an example Germany's fine craftsmanship.
So sleek and ergonomic,it comes with a 20 rounds cartridge or 30 round cartridge.
Such a fine piece of machinery....so much that drove me to .......
..... that i bought an exact replica of HK MP5A3....BB gun.
This is the real weapon..
While this is the replica!Its details is the exact same except that the replica is slightly smaller in size but to the same proportion.
This puppy is made up of iron and high grade polymer, same as the one in the real MP5.
Fore sight...
Adjustable hind sight. A highly trained user will always use the sights for target acquirement.
Though these bad boys shoots only BB balls, it doesn't mean it's a toy.
Can you imagine shooting a plastic target from 10 meters away and it still punctures a hole through the thick plastic clothes??
In full auto mode, it shoots out 600-700 pellets per minutes.
Well, I guess this is the closest thing you'll get in joining the special forces.
