A REAL BARGAIN!

Someone sent this to me via e-mail this morning and I thought I'd post it. Read it and you'll know what I mean!

The Price of Children

This is something absolutely positive for a change. Repeatedly, we have seen the breakdown of the cost of raising a child, but this is the first time the rewards listed in such a nice manner.

It was recently calculated that the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 came up to $160,140 for a middle income family. That doesn't even touch college tuition.

But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

* $8,896.66 a year,
* $741.38 a month, or
* $171.08 a week.
* That's a mere $24.24 a day!
* Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is don't have children if you want to be "rich." Actually, it is just the opposite. What do you get for your $160,140?

* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
* Glimpses of God every day.
* Giggles under the covers every night.
* More love than your heart can hold.
* Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
* A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
* A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites
* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to:

* finger-paint,
* carve pumpkins,
* play hide-and-seek,
* catch lightning bugs, and
* never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:

* keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,
* watching Saturday morning cartoons,
* going to Disney movies, and
* wishing on stars.
* You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay or Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for:

* retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,
* taking the training wheels off a bike,
* re moving a splinter,
* filling a wading pool,
* coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness the:

* first step,
* first word,
* first bra (female) ,
* first date, and
* first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, So, one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price!!!!!!!

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren!!!!!!! They are certainly worth every penny!

A funny thing happend to me on the way to work...

Today’s story (more like rantings and ravings) is about driving..err…again! What can I say when you drive everyday there are bound to be a whole bunch of stories that need to be told. Today’s tale began this morning when I was on my way to work. I live in an older area where the roads are narrow and the cars are aplenty. People often park along the roadside because they have more than two cars and not enough space in their compound. This leads to shrinking the road down to a single lane.

Well when you are down to a lane and there is two-way traffic somebody has got to give way sometimes, right?!? And most times people do and today was no different. I was feeling in a good mood so I said to my wife I’d give way although I had to back up a couple of cars to do so. So back up I did and then patiently waited for the other driver to pass.

Now what cheesed me off was the other bloke didn’t even acknowledge the fact. A slight nod of the head would not have been too hard. I make it a point to wave to the other driver if they were to give way to me or let me pass. My wife said that I shouldn’t expect any acknowledgement but I think that it’s the civilized thing to do. But it’s not only that it’s about queue jumping, and indiscriminate parking and reckless driving and beating the lights, just to name a few. We are not animals that are oblivious to our surroundings! We should know better!

What my point is is that if more people just behaved in a decent manner there would be less road rage and violence and less accidents. People would be more courteous and let you pass. Nowadays, it’s just take, take, take! Nobody wants to give an inch anymore. What is happening to society? Are we reverting back to our barbaric past? Why can’t we be more civil to our fellow man? Won’t that make this a better place to live? Let’s try to be more civilized to our fellow man at least because it’ll make the world a better place! If we're not going to do it for ourselves do it for our little ones, let them grow up in a better world!

Phew! LOL Well now that I’ve vented I feel better. Like I said to my wife this morning when I told her I was going to post this, if I can change just one person’s way of thinking then I’ve achieved something! Will you be the one? :)

The Magnificent Seven!

I've been tagged by the Magnificent Marzie again! :) This time it's Seven Random Facts About Me! I believe I still owe her for the Eight Random Facts About Me so I'd better respond to this LOL Anyway it's not that hard to do so here goes:


There are four simple rules

1. Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog post with their 7 things as well as these rules.
3. You need to tag 7 others and list their names on your blog.
4. Remember to leave a comment for them letting them know they have been tagged and to read your blog.

7 Random Facts About Me

• I hate watching horror movies and when I do I tend to talk a lot for some strange reason.
  
• I can't ride a bicycle without falling off.
  
• I am afraid of roaches (and all other flying insects for that matter) and the names I call them can't be published! It's due to a childhood incident that left me with a phobia of sorts!
  
• I used to occasionally speak in Burp, which is a hard language to master! LOL EEeerrr...Ladies, it's a guy thing!
  
• I can't stand the smell of fish but I love fishing, although it's been ages since I last did! Go figure!
  
• I love to be sarcastic but I don't mean any harm! It's just the way I think! and finally
  
• I love to cook but I hate to follow recipes. This usually leads to food never tasting the same! LOL
  

Those are seven of my deepest darkest secrets errr...random facts you about me. Now I’m going to tag these 7 lowlife schmucks LOL below and hope they bring some skeletons out of their closets too! Over to you guys...

Nick Phillips

Nessa

Ron

Speedcat

Barrett

WonderWoman

Ann

See! I told you it was easy! :)

Whatisthis?

Whatisthis and Where - Those happen to be two of my daughters favourite words! The little one at two years old is starting to pick up words. She is curious and wants to know everthing about anything! I guess they all do at two! They're like tiny little computers on two feet that need to be programed except they're the ones telling the programer to program them! Amazing isn't it? :)

WHATISTHIS?
She picked up the term "Whatisthis" quite a while back except we didn't realize that what she was saying was "What is this?" very fast. The term is something she uses for things she doesn't know and also for things taht she does? Not sure why but I think it's because she wants to verify that that is what it is. A drive out would be filled with "Whatisthis"s form the start to the end. Can you imagine a two hour trip? Whatisthis? A bus Whatisthis? A bus Whatisthis? A lorry Whatisthis? Another bus Whatisthis? Another lorry LOL

This'll go on until she falls asleep or we reach the traffic light. Then she starts with 32, 31 30 26, 23, 27, 24, etc. because we've been teaching her numbers and at the traffic lights they have the electronic countdowns and she tries to follow the numbers. She's quite good actually, especially once it is below 20. Sometimes her focus shifts to the traffic lights and she starts with "Geen coming" because the lights are red. Once it turns green she says "Daddy Go Geen" excitedly :)

WHERE?

Like last night when I was tucking her to bed I told her if she slept early she could get up in the morning and watch the birds fly (which is something she loves to do each morning). The conversation went pretty much like this.

Me: Ellie if you sleep now tomorrow we can get up early and watch the bird fly.

Little One: Where?

Me: Errr fly to their nests.

Little One: Where?

Me: In the trees.

Little One: Where?

Me: Errr in the forest.

Little One: Where?

Me: Eeeeerrrr... look at the butterfly on the wall!

Little One: Where?

Thank goodness her mummy walked in and she got distracted otherwise I'd have been there all night LOL

The next phase is WHY! Why Oh Why? : )

FORE MORE!! FORE MORE!! FORE MORE!!!

Fore More!! Thats what my little one says when she wants more of anything she likes instead of saying "Some More". And she;ll keep saying it until she gets it too! :)

Sometimes I wonder when she will be able to talk better but the other day I was spelling out a word to her mother J-E-L-L-Y and the little one goes jelly. I was speechless.

Another thing that happened was when she's up to mischief or even doing something cute we say "Tengok Dia" which means "Look at Her" but so she won't understand that we are talking about her! Well that's what we thought becasue nowadays when we say it see looks at us and gives us the cheekiest of grins. One can only wonder!

Anyway that's not the reason I'm writing this "Fore More" tale. It's more in relation to my post Quit!! No Way!! If you've read it you'd know that I'm overweight but trying to do something about it. Well yesterday ws another day at the gym and it was weigh-in day. I thought that I'd have put on a little or at least maintained my weight because of my great vacation. To my surprise my trainer said that I had lost"FORE MORE" (four more) kilos! I couldn't believe it. I'm so happy that this is working out and it just give me that extra push to work harder!

Now for another "FORE MORE"!!!

HOMER KIDNAPPED!

It was a warm night and the police were everywhere looking for clues. The family members were huddled in a corner praying for the safe return of their beloved father. Homer J. Simpson has been kidnapped. The news first broke in the Malay Mail so clik on the link for the full story.

Homer at at a recent fancy dress party!

Yes, folks, it had to happen sooner or later. This huge celebrity icon refused to hire additional security or move to a more secure neighborhood. Instead he choose to stay in his home in Springfield. However, that was not where the loveable character was kidnapped from. While on a promotional tour in Malaysia for the upcoming and much eagarly awaited Simpsons movie, he was kidnapped from righ under his family's noses.

This reporter managed to get some exclusive interviews with the family and friends. This is what his beloved wife Marge had this to say "Oh who would want to do a thing like that? Where's my Homey! Homey!" and then she broke off into tears.

Lisa, his brainy daughter was on hand to console her "Dad will be okay but who would want to do this to us? If you're listening, Please bring my father back, we miss him!" Young Bart Simpson put on a brave face too and recollected the time he was kidnapped and said "Sideshow
Bob! It's me you want! Let my father go or ELSE..." and he left it up to his main suspect to conjure up what devious punishment that would be inflicted by Bart. When approached little teary eyed Maggie Simpson had only this to say "Chup, Chup, Chup".

We managed to call some of Homer friends back in Springfield for an interview. Bartender and long time confidant Moe Sizlak said "Homer there's a beer waiting for you at the bar...so when are you gonna pay me!" barney Gumble wanted to say a few words but could only manage "Buuuurrrppppp" before passing out. Mr. Burn's his employer at the plant had only this to say when told abou tthe kidnapping "Excellent!".

Well there you have it folks. The inside scoop of how the family and friends of Homer Simpson are reacting while they await his return. And to the kidnappers I make this heartfelt plea - Please return Homer -The world just isn't the same without him!

QUIT!! No Way!!!

Quit! That's a big word! What am I referring to, well, it's about going to the gym. You see I wanted to write a post today but was just drawing blanks. After work on the way to the gym I asked my wife and she suggested that I write about the gym. I didn't think it was a good idea because I thought of it before and it seemed lame. However, as fate would have it I left my earphones at home! Now whenever I do my cardio I must have my earphones to tune out and make the time fly. So I was pretty cheesed off because it was going to be one tough hour. However, as my workout started I began to think and pretty soon lost myself in drafting this post in my mind. What am I talking about, well read on...

Rewind to 20 years ago. I used to be pretty darn fit and heatlhy. I jogged regularly. I played soccer, badminton, rugby and basketball. In one incident that I will never forget, I was playing rugby one day and was tackled by an opponent and pretty soon everyone piled on me. In the words of one friend who witnessed it from afar "I saw you go down and then saw them all jump on you and you looked like you were squashed. Then I saw the whole pile slowly start to move forward." Yes, that was me in my heyday, strong as a bull, which also happened to be my nickname, Bull. I even completed the PJ Half Marathon within the timeframe, which was an achievement for me! Basically, I liked all kinds of sports and used to indulge whenever I could.

Fast forward 20 years. After years of being a couch potato and just basically not taking care of my diet I have grown a couple of sizes more to put it politely. All those thing that were in the past are really history now bacause had I taken more care maybe it'd still be the present but that what hindsight is all about! I did try going to a gym before but that lasted a whole six months before I reverted back to my sedetary lifestyle!

The Present. After 12 years we were blessed with our little one. We enjoyed ourselves with her and did all the things new parents do but we were lacking something. Stamina. A young child can be very energetic. Besides before we were hit with health issues we decide to start going to the gym. We started in March after the little ones second birthday. At first we were really struggling to cope because we lacked stamina of course. After a month we decided to engage a personal trainer for myself because I really needed to get in shape. So in April the serious workouts began. At first it was tough but soon got better and better. By the end of May I had lost four kilos. I was really happy! It was a great start and I was even more fired up to get going. Watching my diet and pushing myself was really working! I was even planning to get a more intensive workout because I was feeling "the fire"! Then it happened!

The Vacation. We had to send our maid back to the Philippines for her home leave. We decided to take the two weeks off to spend time with the little one and to also go on a short holiday to Singapore and to see the in-laws in Ipoh (see my earlier posts for more details on the trips). We enjoyed ourselves but we neglected our diet. I still managed to go twice to the gym though. It seemed okay because we were not just sitting at home either but instead were out and about.

The Beast. I even managed to buy a new pair of Brooks running shoes because my old ones were getting pretty worn. I liked the name so much apart from the fact that it fit like a glove and gave me great heel support. It was called the Beast. Now I felt was ready to go the distance. My first session with the Beast was great because I coould do my squats without problem for once. Cool! The fire was burning brighter!

A New Begining. It didn't show at first but when we went back to the gym after the second week, it was almost like starting all over again. It was really disheartening because we had to practically start over. I questioned myself and asked if it was worth it, or should I just quit. If just a short spell of R&R could do this could I succeed. The one thing that kept me going was that I knew that I did it once and I could do it again! After all I was doing it for my daughter and basically it was for my own good! So I put aside the lost progress that was really making me feel sore for "losing it" again and started back on my regular schedule. This time I know that there are no more compromises.

I WILL PREVAIL!

Now Showing: Attack of the Viral Icons!

I errr "borrowed" this from Marzie and these icon based viral links seem pretty cool. The thinking blog stated that visual links were more their style simply because they are visual.

The idea is simple (or so they say) and is just like the previous viral attacks but instead it is done with favicons (a picture paints a thousand words). When an ALT tag is used to describe your image with an alternative text, this can help to improve your page relevance. In other words, if ALT attribute contains keywords that are specific to your page's topic, it will help your keyword density.

Moreover, when optimizing a site/web page for Google, remember that this attribute is taken into great consideration by Googlebot when spidering and indexing your pages. Thus, the ALT tag of an hyperlinked image tag has the same importance of a text link.

VIRAL-ICONS

———Copy and paste the VIRAL-ICONS and instructions below this line———

Instructions:

Important Update - Please read here!

1) Copy and paste the matrix of “Viral Icons” below courtesy of Ilker Yoldas from The Thinking Blog. (to support Ilker’s quest of launching his own Internet Startup with a student budget, please consider subscribing to the Full RSS Feed and enjoy interesting posts in the meantime. "Knowledge grows when shared!").

2) Upload your non-animated favicon (GIF image of size 16x16 pixels) to ImageShack, a similar free image hosting server or to your own server provided by your hosting service if you have one.

3) Substitute the Host Icon and one of the “Viral Icons” in the matrix with your ALT text of choice and your blog’s URL. Maximum of 3 specific keywords for the ALT text are best for it to be effective.


4) When you get a ping back from someone that has your icon in one of their “Viral Icons”, practice good karma by copying his/her Host Icon’s code (automatically the associated ALT tag will also be copied) and paste it over one of your “Viral Icons” below.

5) Invite your readers to do the same and soon this can grow virally.

Host Icon:

VIRAL-ICONS

Rules: No Porn Sites, Only 1 icon per person (i.e. don't hog the ViralIcons!), and please don't tamper with other people's ALT tags, URLs or favicons.

Important: Once I get a ping back from you (I promise to do the best I can), I will add your favicon and the associated code you designate as “Host Icon” here, replacing one of the “Viral Icons” from the matrix above. Feel free to drop a comment here with your blog URL, ALT tags and favicon URL (we don't mind if it is the same all over the blogosphere).

Optional: Display the “Viral Icons” badge on your sidebar and promote your blog. As more and more bloggers copy and paste the “Viral Icons” from the matrix above, the more backlinks you will have with your ALT text, and in turn the more promotion your blog with get. The sooner you participate, the more link love you will receive!

———Copy and paste the VIRAL-ICONS and instructions above this line———