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When I was in my early 20s, I used to rent mountain bikes to cycle around in Sentosa island. There are some hilly terrains and bicycle paths. The bikes were rented about $4 for an hour. We would rent it for several hours and discover Sentosa Island this way. It was fun. 

Bicycles for rent / Tandems that can sit two or more (one child seat fitted)

At the East Coast Beach, you can do the same. There are bicycle kiosks that let beach goers rent bicycles and tandems are also included. Ah Boy and I had tried riding on the tandems before. Tandems are very interesting bikes that has two seats. These bikes are common in areas designated for bike tracks but they are not allowed on our roads. Perhaps it is deemed as dangerous to ride on these.

I thought of getting a tandem during the weekend but the girls argued who should be on the little seat on the tandem. Lea started to cry because she insisted that those seats are meant for little girls like her. Rae started to pull a long face. In the end, Ah Boy and I decided not to ride on them.  It may be hard to control a 3 in 1 bicycle. He said he will fix something at the back of the car and bring our own bikes here next time. Ya, and a lot cheaper too. Tandem rentals are $9 per hour at the beach.

Rae and Lea certainly need more play time outdoors. I am hoping they pick up learning the bicycles in two wheels soon. They are riding with the additional supporting wheels on each side of the rear wheel.

School has just started for a week and here i am feeling tired, stressed and thinking of a holiday. I can’t help it. I wish I could take a trip to somewhere far where the four seasons are. It is getting so humid lately and the air conditioning doesn’t seem to help. I also read that electricity tariffs are set to go up from July 1st onwards so that means I have to try to reduce turning on the air condition or turn it up later in the day. I can’t help looking onto travel related sites for the best flight deals. I need a cool vacation away from this region.

A spate of house break-ins was reported in the past month. We should always keep our homes safe and secure all the time, even thought you may live in a safer neighbourhood. Having a good and safe set of door knob and lock system is the key to prevent easy break-ins. I would never compromise these with cheap locksets because good quality door hardware can also last for many years. I would recommend a reputable brand Schlage for quality and lasting exterior and interior door hardware. This is the brand that has been around and trusted for over 85 years! Besides it’s reliability, it is also stylish enough for those who are looking to decorate their doors.

I was at my wit’s end over accessing my blog lately. In the past 2 weeks, I have 3 occasions whereby I cannot even get into my blog. I have checked with my hosting company and they checked and found no problem on their site and server. When this happens, it is usually resolved by the following day. But this is not the real long term solution to it, right?

My blogger friends globally can view my blog with no problem but I keep getting error or time out problems even though I tried from both Fire fox and Internet Explorer. I checked with my ISP and they found no problem when they looked into it. I’ve been guided to go through looking into my firewall, internet connections and whatever the underlying problems may be. The funny thing is, I CAN CONNECT to ALL WEBSITES except my own blog. Sigh. I then called up Linksys to help me troubleshoot to see if it was the router problem. They went through the same motion as with my ISP, Hosting Provider and said they have exhausted all means! What could be wrong then. The ISP provider told me the router could be causing the problem and may need to have some configurations to be set but apparently Linksys could not verify that. (YET?)

This morning, I woke up trying to access my blog and there it goes again. Same problem again, and I was ever ready to pull out my hair. My desktop is placed a distance from my modem and I am using a wireless adapter to a router, linked to the modem. So this morning, I drove to the nearby mall and waited for the shops to open. I stepped into Harvey Norman to see if I could get an adapter to connect my two short internet cables since both can’t reach the pc hd. The fella discouraged me from doing that and ask me to get a LAN cable they have in store. I looked at it and thought a while. I will need to get really longer one for that then. They had one about 14 metres long and I wasn’t sure if it was long enough. I thought they were a little bit expensive too. It was more than $30 for that or was it $39? I took a while to consider and left the store. The shorter one was cheaper at $8, but too short.

I went down one level to Popular Book Store because I remembered they too have computer peripherals there. I searched and saw something like a Cat. 5e UTP Standard LAN cable.. Oh isn’t that the same, I thought. I looked at the ends. It looked the same and I double checked with the sales lady. Yes. And you know what? This one is 20 metres long and it cost only $18.50 for that, the package has a Best Quality Guaranteed Award and also states a Lifetime Guarantee. Wow, that is great!

When making payment, the lady asked for my Popular Card. More savings! I got a 20% further discount and now I only pay for it at $14.80. That made my day! When I got home I managed to hook up the modem to my pc direct without the router and it worked perfectly fine! And I could get into my blog, NO PROBLEM. So what seems to be my problem then? I still think my router is the problem if I bypass it and it worked.

Received this tag from Jean and Chikai! Thank you so much my dear friends!

Participants: 1. Me and Mine 2.Creative In Me 3.Little Peanut 4. Pea in a Pod 5. Sugar Magnolias 6. The Salad Caper 7. All Kinds of Me Stuff 8. Aggie Scraps. 9. Winding Creek Circle 10. Mommy Talks. 11. Fun | Fierce | Fabulous 12. Me, Myself + 2 13. Confessions of a Supermodel Wannabe 14. My Precious Nice 15. Just Me.. Eds 16. Eds Mommy Life 17.Jean’s Live it Up… 18. Sunny Side Up Foodie & Lifestyle 19. Almanac Queen 20. Your Blog Here..

RULES:
1. Add your blog/s to the list. Feel free to add all your other blogs. It’s okey if you only post this questions in one blog as long as you answer them.
2. Get back to Me {YEN} and I’ll add your blogs to the master’s list here!
3. Tag as many friends online you know. But you don’t need to be tag in order to join.

QUESTIONS:

1. I posted this experiment at URL: http://www.almanacqueen.com
2. I posted this on date (day, month, year): Monday June 2008
3. I posted this at time (24 hour time): 03:04pm
4. My posting location is (city, state, country): Singapore

5. My blog is hosted by: Hostgator
6. My age is: 39 yrs old.
7. My gender is: Female
8. My occupation is: Stay Home Mom
9. I use the following RSS/Atom reader software: FeedBurner
10. I use the blog format to post to my blog: Wordpress
11. I have been blogging since (day, month, year): July, 2007
12. My web browser is: Fire Fox
13. My operating system is: Windows XP

Tags are a wonderful way to connect to bloggers, make new friends online and also to get your technoratis up. I believe it also help many bloggers to have their ranks up because of the links too. If you would like to work more incoming links be sure to join me in this tag! Copy this and post it up, then follow the instructions to get on the master list. Hurry Hurry! The earlier ones stand a better chance to get more links! 

Tagging: Bernadeth, Liza, Twinkle and Purplesky and hope it will bring lots of links to their blogs too!

My girls are very sociable to my neighbour next door. My neighbour is an old man who lives alone. He is an amputee, that means he has one of his leg (knee down) amputated. He used to live with his brother but apparently he is on an oversea assignment for work and will be away for a while. In the weekends, his place is filled with lots of joy and mahjong activity by his famiily members who visit or gather there. They are here everyweek and most holidays. I didn’t mind the laughter that is coming from next door. It made neighbourhood more lively and happy too. Quietness in the neighbourhood can have advantages but a jolly good time with family members are something to be cherished.

Lea and Rae enjoys knowing Uncle. They will cheerfully call Uncle every morning when he is hobbling past our door for his usual coffee break nearby. He can really walk because our place has no neighbouring shops, really. He is a chirpy man, indeed and always answers in a very jolly mood. Lea would also check on his doors whenever we are going out. She will check if Uncle is there and just to say ‘hi’ or ‘bye’! When they are out for cycling, they would also stop by his door first.

Uncle has many family members globally that comes visiting too. And the other day he gave the girls a nice box of Maple Leafe Chocolates from Canada. Lea loves the White chocolates, Rae takes the Milk chocolates, and Mummy gets the Dark chocolate! Uncle is really sweet with the girls.

Nowadays, corporate companies invest more in teambuilding courses. I had the chance to attend several in the past and they usually include up to 5 days and even paid stays at resorts or hotels around the region. Some introverts may not really like them as these involve lots of communication, team effort and making lots of friends from acquaintances from colleagues and even those of other companies.

There was a group of people who conducted these teambuilding programme at the beach the other day. We noticed their larget tentage by the beach. They were in a large group marching away. My girls were excited to see them march and they, too marched. Then later on they did some obstacle course that ended up really funny, dressing a baby doll. These were men and they had to run, get on the monkey bars, do sit ups, hop over suspension benches and dressed the baby doll. Of course my girls were laughing so hard. Unashamedly I took pictures of these men.

I would like to share with you this collection of little stones, pebbles, rocks and the like. No, this is not my collection but belongs to a very dear friend of mine. Can you believe that she has such an eye for these whenever she take her walks by the beach!

It is very hard to come across those that are so similarly shaped like a heart! Is it meant to be a sign from God? She gave quite a few away to her family members too. There is no stopping her finding these beautiful rocks! I am sure one day she will have such a large collection, she might be able to have an exhibition!

I think they are really a pretty sight too!

Thanks to Liz for this tag. I’ve come across so many tags and this is really out of the ordinary. Tags are so much fun and you really get to know many blogger friends, a little at a time. This one will be for bloggers and their professions. Don’t be shy if you think you have a profession you are proud of, ya.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Copy and paste everything to a new post and Add your name next to your profession (or profession-to-be for undergrads) in the list. Make sure your name is linked to your blog/webbie.

Tip: For easier capture of links, paste into your blog using the “Visual” (for WP) and Compose (for Blogger) modes (not Edit HMTL or HTML).

2. If your profession is not in the list then simply add it to the correct alphabetical place. For example, if you want to add PLUMBER then it should be placed in between ONCOLOGIST and QUEEN.

3. Tag as many people as you can and witness how your technorati will explode!

4. Don’t forget to link back . In your case, link back to Arlene.

THE WORLD CLASS PROFESSIONS

Blogger -
Doctor -
Nurse - Mckhoii,
Stay-at-Home-Mom - Mai, Alpha, Yen, Constance
Secretary- Arlene
Teacher -
University Employee- Suzanne
Work-at-Home-Mom- Liza

Now I’d like to hear from my blogger pals. They are Emila, Taugeh, Jepunlauee, Kikey.

Hope to see this tag up on your blogs, ya..

I love to visit the centres that offers Foot Reflexology. A session of an hour is all I need to feel relaxed and revived, after a tiring day on your feet. It can cost anything from $20 or more, depending on the length of time. But they are really worth it. Have you ever tried it?

We decided to go for the foot reflexology path at the beach recently. We took our shoes off and walked on it. Ouch Ouch Ouch!! Boy, that hurt. I had to hold on to the railings for support.

My helper was pretty good! She was doing brisk walking on it. I didn’t allow Lea and Rae on it cos I don’t think it is good for their little feet. Ah Boy said perhaps we were both overweight, that was why it hurt bad. Look at the tan on my feet (from wearing sandals, just after several hours of sun!)