spikegifted.net - Home of Benjamin Siu

Updates

January 2010:
Home: As we are expecting two little ones to join us in the near future, we need to plan! Every parent would be able to tell us of all the things we would need to survive the initial few weeks after their arrival: pram, car seats, cots, clothes, bottles, etc... The list just goes on and on. We have some very definite ideas as to what we wanted for our little ones and how much we wanted to pay for them. We were looking around for a twin stroller that could be converted to be a twin pram which will allow the little ones to be facing us when they lay down in the pram. This seemed like an easy request, but there were actually very few models that actually allowed that for twins, and the few that were suitable were just plain expensive. The one model that appears to fit all our requirements costs GBP350 for the basic unit, which is the frame and two seats. Then the carrying cots are GBP150 each. So, imagine my relieve when I found one on eBay which has all the added extras that we are looking for for less than GBP400! The only down side was that the seller was located in Nottinghamshire. As it turned out, it was very good timing - I picked up our new car on Wednesday and on Saturday, I spent the day going up north to pick up the twin pram and the get to know the car. The trip costs me a tank of petrol which was around GBP65, so in total, the twin pram from eBay was still a saving of over 30%.
Home: In the end, the decision was not a hard one... As mentioned before, our car was not in good shape and cost of getting it road-worthy was just too high as cutting corners was not an alternative. Luckily, a friend put me in touch with a friend of his who works in a manufacturer authorized used car dealership. He managed to give us a very favorable value for the old car for the part exchange. We are not really demanding user of the car, all we wanted was one that is safe and trouble-free. In less than two days, he had found a suitable car for us. It was a smaller model and has a smaller engine, but all the features were right up to date. The cost of fixing the old car would be enough to pay for nearly nine months of financing for the new one. Also as it has a smaller engine, the road tax and insurance should be cheaper. After I took delivery of the new car, I realize that fixing the old car was just false economy. While this was not a complaint, the new car is a smaller model than the old one and we could feel the difference in the amount of space inside and the luggage space at the back. As with any new car, it will take a little while to get use to it. But right now it was just a joy to have a car and not having to worry about what might go wrong next.
Opinion: The President of the US, Barack Obama, has found a way to get banks to repay for the US$117bn the state spent to stabilize the sector by slapping a levy over ten years. This, I think, was probably the best approach I have heard so far regarding making banks pay for the taxpayer guarantee during the darkest days and months of 2008 and 2009. There was no point in arguing the need to pay back some money in some shape or form, the question is how and how much, and in a way that can be considered 'fair'. Clearly, in a totally free market, given the events of September 2008 and the subsequent collapse of confidence in all banks, not many banks would have survived without government support. On the other hand, some banks saw themselves as being so important to 'the system' that they expected public money to come and save them from the abyss, at least temporarily. You can't have it both ways - free market when the times are good and public money when times are bad. The question was how much does public money worth to the banks, this bridge that was extended? Not in terms of short-term money, which nearly all of them have repaid, but how much does the support/bail out worth to the banks in the long-term, given not many of them would be around to argue their case if there was no government support. So the cost of support is now out in the open, which is good, in that we now have a figure to work with. Not for the sake of argument, but to allow banks to absorb this cost, 'learn the lessons' and move on. Personally, I see little point in putting up a fight, the world is against us. It is time to shut up, pay up and get on with the job of making money.
Home: Our car was not well... Just before Christmas, I took it in to a service which in itself was not cheap. However, the manufacturer service center came back with a 2-page 'rap sheet' which meant spending a further GBP1,500 on it to pass the M.O.T. Ouch! I didn't expect that. So, nothing was done as I wanted a second opinion. I still had plenty of time before the existing M.O.T. expires. At least the car was winter-safe. Given the weather we've had since Christmas and our trip to France, that first bit of money was money well spent. I took the car to an independent service shop that specialized in our make of car and hoped they'd come back with a more reasonable figure. Sadly, that was not the case. These guys came back with an even longer list which would cost GBP1,700 to fix. And that was just things that had to be done. There were other things that needed attention in the near future. That just wasn't possible. I have seen cars that were literally wrecks, yet they were being driven on all manners of places. My car appeared to be in good shape, yet I would have to spend more than it was worth just to make it road legal. That just made no sense. There were alternatives, the most obvious was to take it to some small garage and somehow get an M.O.T. However, in the not too distant future, there will be two additional passengers in the car. Do I dare having them in there knowing that there are a list of things that need fixing in the car? Decisions; decisions...
Home: With weather like that, it was difficult to do anything. The most basic things like walking to the train station became a long track through snow and ice. My pair of Timberland walking shoes, which have served me very well for the past few years were really struggling - it was literally sliding on ice. I tried to seek out snow that has not been compacted which afforded a little more grip than the ice. The Ruler_of_spike was also finding the going difficult and with the roads covered in ice, her company offered to pay for taxi rides to take her to the station. However, there were days when even taxis refused to come down the side roads owing to the difficult conditions and the likelihood of accidents.
Home: Big Snow!! Just when we thought the snow before Christmas was a one-off, it came with a vengeance. In the twenty years since arriving in London, I have never experience so much snow. I am talking amount that exceeded we had back in February last year. There were some places up north that had over thirty centimeters of the stuff. Of course, as always, the snow made all the public transport grind to a halt. More problematic was the fact that it had snowed quite a lot before Christmas last year and local councils had used up a good amount of their stores of grit. With this fresh snow, our council decided it was not going to grit any of the side streets. Once the snow has been compacted by passing cars, it quickly turned into ice. So although the major roads were open to traffic, it was impossible to even get out of our front drive as there was a layer of ice running almost the entire length of the street. To add to the problem, our street is on an incline and the council has installed a whole collection of bumps to slow the traffic. I saw a number of cars trying to get through and some of them were literally going sideways after hitting their brakes. It was dangerous and foolish.
Home: After our break in Brittany, we came back to London on the first weekend of the new year. During the week we were away, the Ruler_of_spike picked up an extra kilogram of weight! I have been told by other people who have had twins that by the end of pregnancy, the mothers typically put on an average of twenty five kilograms. Well, the Ruler_of_spike is petit. Twenty five kilos is nearly half of her body weight before she got pregnant! Ouch!!
Home: Happy New Year!!

Warning: This site contains lots of images (some of them are quite large) which may take longer than expected to download.

Note 1: This site contains ideas and thoughts that you may not agree with. These are expressed on a purely personal basis and do not represent any political parties or interest groups.

Note 2: This site is intended to be viewed at a minimum resolution of 1280x1024. Users with lower resolution may struggle with some of the pages.

Note 3: If the drums bother you, it can be stopped by pressing the 'Stop' button of your browser.

Note 4: Contents are added and removed without notice. Visitors are advised to return and check frequently. :-)

This site is hosted by