China vs USA

Just a random thought...

China has like trillions of USD reserves right? Lets imagine the scenario where China decides to suddenly dump all the USD in the market. What's going to happen?
- Everyone else is going to dump their USD as well.
- The USD will suddenly cease to be THE world currency
- The US will have difficulty with sustaining their trade deficit.
- The US might default.

Of course its not in China's best interest to do that. But... theoretically... China has the power to do that.

Scary?

50% Bonus Supertax

Dont know if you heard the news but Alistair Darling announced that bonuses will be taxed an additional 50%.

My take home bonus will now be
50% (Bonus Tax) * 50% (the other half being deferred) * 60% (40% income tax) = 15% of the face value declared bonus...

Demoralising man. I feel cheated.

disorganised thoughts

So many different thoughts going thru my brain right now... And I can't be bothered to organise them so bear with me...

- my dinner is in my microwave and i'm starving but I don't want to distract my thoughts...

- occurred to me yet again how time flies. i've been married for just over two months now. more and more of my friends are getting married.

- when time flies, stuff happens. some young girl sadly passed away, another distant friend's granddad too. mortality does bring you back to reality, and once again remind you what really is important in your life.

- felt really sian at work today. dont really know why - perhaps its the press and the public riling against paying me something decent.

- exercise really helps me destress. now i realise why I wasn't stressed in school... i play football every day!

- the winter gloom is really starting to get to me. hard to stay cheerful. i should hit the gym more.

Honeymoon in the uk part 3

Sat oct 17.

On weds we spent the day at Cheltenham, a small city. We arrived at Chapel spa, had a "light" lunch there followed by some relaxing by the pool and then a massage. Then we checked in at beaumont house, a pretty restored old house with ample parking and a beautiful garden. We went around looking for food and finally decided to dine at the daffodil- apparently a famous place- but unfortunately it was fully booked! So instead we went to Moran's, a family owned wine bar / restaurant.

Thursday we went to Crewe Hall - a converted residence of a rich merchant. The driveway in was very impressive! It was a package deal so we spent the entire day there.

We are in York now. Arrived yesterday after spending one day at lake district. We stayed at the Rampsbeck country house hotel at the second biggest lake there called ullswater. Took a short hike to see a small waterfall, explored a small village, and took a steamer boat ride on the lake. The views were very pretty and the weather was good and sunny, just a bit chilly on the boat. There are a lot of sheep at lake district. The hotel we stayed at in lake district and York are very pretty restored country houses.

Yesterday we toured around York which is a very historical city. Walked on old castle Walls, walked on cobbled streets, around old church ruins and dd some shopping on their high street.

Today will be spending the day in the hotel spa and having afternoon tea. Heading back to London tomorrow.

Honeymoon in uk part 2

Weds oct14.

On the road now from cornwall to Cheltenham.  

On monday after Bath, we spent a night in padstow, a small town in north Cornwall by the coast. The town is dominated by restaurants and b&bs by famous restauranteur rick stein.

Tuesday we went to the Eden Project, a very big educational garden built in a disused clay pit. There are two big biomes with a tropical rainforest and mediterranean climate. Lots of outdoor greenery and many varieties of plants. Pretty cool. Good weather has been following us too.

Went To the southwestern most tipof England to see the Minack theatre, an outdoor theatre made on a cliff in the 1930s by a woman. Of course it took a while to build given the terrain and wars. Very impressive though. Had scones and clotted cream in the cafe there. Yummy.

Drove onto Falmouth which is a Coastal town with lots of b&bs. Had Thai food for dinner because needed a break from British food. Had too much potatoes. Tomyum never tasted so good.

Now going to Cheltenham for a day spa and spend the night. Will head to Crewe and then to lake district tomorrow. Hope the good weather stays.

Honeymoon in uk part 1

computer died soon after my post. Now posting true iPhone. The honeymoon is over and L just left this morning.

Sat 10 oct

Lunch with friends was great. Weather very nice. Went for hampstead crepes n then to Xp's apt for late dinner n games.

Sunday picked up rental car then drove to a restaurant near Windsor called fat duck. Very good n super interesting food n concepts like liquid nitrogen cooked scrambled eggs n bacon ice cream. Took a lot of pictures. French waiters are funny. Lunch started at 2pm ended at 6pm. Longest meal ever. Then drove to bath n spent the night there.

Today went to the roman baths, had lunch n went to a modern day bath spa near the roman baths. Very relaxed. Will hv dinner at padstow n going ard Cornwall tmw.

Got married!

Went to california last week to get married. In my eyes it was great! Superb weather and in a beautiful garden setting - can't get much better. Some of the pictures turned out really nice. I'll probably put up the pictures when I get the proper ones.

Now, back in London with L. We're having a lunch thing with all our friends on Saturday. After that we'll have a mini honeymoon.

I was pretty proud of my wedding speech (shamelessly adapted from a few I found online) so for my records I'm posting it here.

===

You are all about to witness a unique event in history. This is the very first and the very last time that the Wife is going to let me speak on behalf of both of us... You wont believe how hard I had to beg for this priviledge... so lets take our time...

So Ladies and Gentlemen, we'd like to thank everyone for coming today, it means so much to us, to have everyone we love and care about here to share our special day, and a big thank you to those who have had long journeys to be here. We hope the day is as enjoyable for you as it special to us.

On a personal note, I would especially like to thank my new in-laws C and W who have done everything to make me feel welcome since I first started dating Lu-En almost 7 years ago. Ma I would like to thank for the effort you have put in making the invitations, the place cards, the flowers, and Pa I'd like to thank for letting me marry your daughter.

I can't stand up here without giving a very special thanks to my mum who has always been there for me with support and guidance in every big decision I have made in my life. It means so much to me that you are here today, witnessing this occasion, thank you very much.

I would also like to thank H for agreeing to be my Best Man today. For those of you who don't know - H is also Lu-En's brother. Actually, maybe that explains why he's agreed to be my best man. Thanks for helping today run so beautifully....

And speaking of "beautiful", we'd like to thank the bridesmaids Y and X - I know how much support you have given Lu-En up to and including this day. I'd like everyone to compliment them on their shoes and dresses for they took as much time to pick the right color and style as it took for my bride to do her hair! Thanks to A, our cute flower girl, to K for the videography, and O, for the wedding cake. Thanks also to L, L and Z for everything you've done today.

When I proposed to L, I put a lot of thought into what makes a good marriage... seriously, yeh.. The dictionary says that a marriage is the institution whereby man and woman are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependancy for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family... hmm, if only things were that simple. Some people say its consists of 3 rings, engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering. Others say its an alliance of 2 people - one who never remembers birthdays and anniversaries, and one who never forgets. Whatever it is, I know I'm marrying my perfect partner.

Today, I'm marrying my best friend and my soulmate. We have a relationship where we could spend every waking minute together and not get bored. We can talk to each other all day... well, actually she talks, I listen. On that note, I have to say thanks as well to Skype and MSN, for without you, it wouldn't have been possible to chat with L every morning for the time we've been apart.

Anyway I'd like to take this opportunity to first of all, tell L how beautiful you look today.. and secondly to thank you for all the hard work and time that you have put in to make today such a success. ... and believe me it was hell of a lot of time so I'd like everyone to raise their glass and join me, in making a toast to my new wife - To the most beautiful bride in the world - L!

I wont waste any more of your valuable drinking time - and instead leave that to the bride's father, W!

Blogging thru the iphone sucks

Well. not exactly true. the way I did it was I email to this blogging address and it automatically publishes. However the emails have automatically inserted line breaks and blogger takes those line breaks as intentional paragraph formatting. the end result is really ugly with stupid line breaks all over where it shouldn't be. In future if I blog thru the phone I'll blog directly thru blogger.com.

=== facebook stalking ===

Do you realise that you can see entire albums of pictures taken by other people as long as one of your friends is tagged? I've managed to see more than a couple of wedding photos because of that!

=== upcoming wedding ===

Excited. Nervous. Excited. Nervous.

Its in... 12 days... Colleagues planning a stag night. By the looks of things they are not going to let me off easy.

How time flies

Been more than a month since I updated my blog.

Life has been pretty ok for me so far. It's a bit lonely without L but I try to make the best of it. Besides, wedding in a little more than a month.

Over this period, I've been to a few dinners with brokers and poole in Bournemouth for windsurfing. Also trying to play more sports, like badminton and tennis.

On my way now to victoria where I will board a train to Dover. Going to go around the "White cliffs county" with a few friends - should be fun!

Blogging thru email/ iPhone

I just bought an iPhone. Having loads of fun with it now. Actually, I am currently typing on it now. So many cool things with it. From the maps with GPS, the syncing of google calendar and contacts, it's like
the best miniture portable laptop! except that the laptop wouldn't have gps of course.

Ageing

Turning 29 this year and I am starting to feel my age creeping up.

When I was a kid I wished I could grow up quickly. When I first started work, I wished I looked older so I can get a bit more respect.

Now people say my hairline is receeding. Not sure if its work related stress (I try to destress by doing sports), the hard water in London (I'm drinking bottled water nowadays), or just age thats causing my thinning hair. It is a bit upsetting though.

So today, when I bought a bottle of wine from the supermarket, I was geniunely happy when the salesgirl asked to check my ID. After I smiled and said "Glad you asked.", I think she was looked a bit suspiciously at me - probably wondering if I was gay or something...

Anyway, I do feel a lot older now. I should really try to do a marathon before I'm 50...

JPM run

I signed up for the run of 5.6km for fun. It was an excuse to get free T-shirts and to get off work early. I had set a personal target of 27mins for myself. Managed to finish in 25min 30sec which was, I think, my personal best.

I really think I put in everything in the race - was even feeling a little giddy as soon as I finished. Don't think I could have pushed myself harder than that, so its good.

** EDIT **
I found out that my time was really 26min 30sec... so, a bit disappointed...

Nothing really to update...

Work - as per usual. Bearable.

Social - not too bad. The weather's been really good recently. Played football one weekend in the sun, felt a bit like in Singapore. Some weekends I went to the park (most times by myself)... its relaxing lying on the grass under a tree, looking up at the green leaves on the backdrop of blue skies and white clouds, watching (and hearing) the branches sway in the breeze.

But otherwise, nothing much happening at the moment. Which is probably good news.

California - Part 4

== Day 6 ==

L had to go to lab in the morning. I napped. She came back, we had a simple lunch, watched a bit of videos, saw some pictures off a particular photographer's blog (*wink) then we went to get some Caribbean bbq for our small house party. Jerk chicken, BBQ pork ribs and braised oxtail. Not to mention their corn festivals which tastes like Ham Chim Peng :)

== Day 7 ==

Spent the first half of the day lazing around at home, watching Finding Nemo again... Took a nap, then finally in the late afternoon we met Gabrielle at Gamble Gardens. She's our officiator at the wedding.

After that we went down to San Fran - L managed to get a night free at St Regis because of some Starwood Preferred Guest offer. Whoa the hotel is damn cool... coolest part of course, is that it would have cost 429 dollars if not for the offer!!!

Dinner was at this Japanese/ fusion place called Namu. The food was really good but the decor/ambiance left much to be desired. The shop front looked disappointing and the interior quite small and barren so it got quite noisy... We had to practically shout to each other... definitely not a nice date place.

 

 

== Day 8 ==

Had a really late breakfast at Vitrine, the restaurant at the hotel. We shared some black truffle omelette (I know, it sounds posh) and coffee. Lunch I planned to go Swan Oyster Depot... but on arriving there it looked like a messy cheap seafood bar. So we went to the sushi/jap place next door and got some simple jap stuff (sashimi, beef teriyaki, tempura, udon).

Then L drove me to the airport and dropped me off as she had so often. We had lots of practice at this already. The dropoff is the best way for me to go.

== Plane ride back ==

I got allocated 62C, this aisle seat near the back of the plane. A young guy came over and sat in 62A (there wasn't a 62B since at the tail of the plane where its narrow, only 2 seats could fit). He turned to me all friendly and said "hi". I wasn't really in the mood for conversation but I said "hi" anyway. Then he said he was flying with his girlfriend, but they bought the tickets separately, how he thought he could change the seats at check-in but the flight was overbooked as usual etc. and asked if I was willing to move. Which seat was she, I asked. 58F was his reply.

I was hesitant of course. Thing is with some seats there's a stupid box under the seat so you can't extend your legs. My seat didn't have the box and I wasn't sure if 58F had that problem. Besides, the guy next to me was pretty normal sized... what if the seat I moved to (it was a center seat) was next to two hugeass guys?

But I agreed to move anyway... I thought I was alone anyway, and these two lovebirds could enjoy being together. So I moved. They thanked me and I said it wasn't a problem.

2 hours into the flight, after our meal and the lights were switched off and I was enjoying the movie... a woman suddenly thrusted a plastic bag at me from the aisle. I was momentarily stunned because a) it was dark and b) I was enjoying my movie. I then recognised the woman as the one I changed seats with. I took the bag and she left quietly. Inside the bag was a cute handwritten note, "To say thank you for moving - Jess and Rob" and a bag of chocolates.

Aww... I felt all warm inside. I feel that we don't get recognition for good deeds often enough. Sure you get it as a child when your parents/teachers praise you when you do something good... but as an adult, you don't get that pat on your back. That little gesture of thanks was really touching. More importantly to me, its cool to be recognised as being nice - especially as I was, ahem, a money grubbing banker.

California - Part 3

== Day 5 ==

L had to go to her lab in the morning. I lazed around a bit, picked her up at 11, then we went to this tea place at downtown palo alto. They had all sorts of tea - white tea, green tea, Chinese tea, Darjeeling, Assam etc... They also served some nice sandwiches and quiches. Yummy!

After lunch she had another appointment, so I dropped her off at Terman - then went back home and lazed a bit more. At roughly 3, we went to V's thesis defense. This would be the second thesis defense I've attended in 3 days. It was quite fun - both student and teacher were poking fun at each other. Then I met L's labmates for a bit, went to V's after-thesis-defense-party for a short while (I snacked on cheese and biscuits and champagne) and then we headed off to (in my mind) the event of the day... Arcadia restaurant in San Jose.

The restaurant, an American Steakhouse, is located in this convention complex right next to the Marriott. It had this dark brown interior, very much like Spruce (which we went there just two days ago). I had lobster corn dogs, kobe skirt steak, and molten choc cake. L had a salad (blue cheese, pecan, apple), some dover sole, and lemon triffle. We also shared a portion of duck fat fries (I assume the fries were fried in duck fat!) Everything was good, but the steak I had was legen-dary. Beautifully charred on the outside and juicy on the inside, it was so good I savoured every little bite.

"Are you ok?", L asked, seeing my dreamlike state as I took my first taste of the steak. I only wished they had served me a 24oz portion instead...

California - Part 2

== Day 3 continued ==
So L had her hair made up for the photoshoot. Meanwhile she instructed me to get orange calla lilies... pretty specific eh. Called around but none of the florists had it. Went to the one at the Stanford Shopping Center and they had yellow ones. L was fine with it so I got them.

Then we went back, got dressed into our outfits, and started the photoshoot. Was quite fun. L got two friends to help out. We took a few pictures around the main quad, then we went to university avenue and took more pictures.

One picture was taken right in the middle of the road. J, our photographer, was like, "wow the lights look really cool. Wait here..." then he went onto the middle of the road while the lights were red. Took a couple of test shots then came back and said, "do you wanna do this?"

I was like, "in the middle of the road?"

"do you want to do this? I wont force you..."

after a bit of consideration, I thought, what the heck... this is once in a lifetime. So we agreed, practiced our pose at the side, then rushed to the middle, struck our pose and got our picture taken. We had a glimpse of the result on the camera and we were impressed! can't wait to see the real thing now...

== Day 4 ==

Woke up lazily late in the morning, had a small breakfast, then went to San Fran for our "Dine about Town" day. First stop was Spruce, a pretty hip/posh place at Sacramento shopping district. Nice dark brown and white interior. Was served by this white haired old gentlemen who looked and acted a bit gay. The food was really good. Started with a Tokyo turnip soup, followed by some mushroom trout thing (turned out to be salmon instead?!) and wrapped off with a delightful lemon pastry with ice-cream thingy. The soup was fantastic, the salmon flavours were subtle and the dessert was.. well, delightful.

Then we caught "Up" in 3D in this old classical theatre called the "Castro Theatre". While we were waiting for the movie to begin, there was this musician (organist??) playing old disney music with the theatre organ... man it was impressive! The movie was good too.

Dinner was at Campton Place. Quite a posh place as well, but we thought the food wasn't fantastic. The dessert was really nice though - I had basil braised strawberries with honeydew and vanilla ice cream. L had kinda like a lemon sorbet thing with meringue and oolong infused mousse. sweet...

Fun date :)

California - Part 1

== Flight ==
Arrived at the airport 2.5 hrs before departure. Joined a "bag drop" queue but it wasn't moving. Joined another bag drop queue. Moved about a foot after 5 minutes... decided to stay in the queue - at least there was progress. One hour later, I was only halfway there. The desk was closing in 10mins - one Virgin Atlantic woman came around asking, "San Francisco!". I hurried to her, was directed to another desk and within 3 minutes I've checked in my bags. Leaves me really puzzled why the hell I had to queue for an hour.

After boarding the flight, we sat quietly waiting for the plane to move off. But it never did. Bored, I fell asleep. An hour later, we were still in the same spot. Apparently there was a problem with some lock somewhere and it would have to get replaced before we could fly. Expected time? 2.5 hrs after scheduled departure.

Sigh worst flight experience ever.

== Day 1 ==

As soon as I touched down, I switched on my phone and gave L a ring. She arrived at the airport just as I collected my bag and headed out the airport. We then went to Iberia, this pretty cool spanish bar/restaurant place at Menlo Park for some really superb spanish tapas. She had a glass of red wine and I had Sangria. Super... then we went to Coldstone for ice cream. yummy!

== Day 2 ==

Woke up at 8.. lazed around, then went for breakfast at Cafe Borrone. She had belgian waffles with strawberries and cream. I had egg-cheese-ham omelette with a spicy italian sausage. flushed down the stuff with Chai tea and frosted mocha. Good food and really enjoyable. There was this hugeass German Shepard next to us, but for some reason she was really upset. She kept making this loud high pitched whining sound. Her owner was female and didn't really care that much about the dog... and when a guy came to the table, she whined even louder to the guy. We concluded that the guy was the real owner of the dog and she's unhappy that his girlfriend was left "in charge".

== Day 3 ==
Just started. L has to go to lab to feed some cells I think. I'll join her an hour later at a common friend's thesis defence. Then we're going for lunch somewhere, she's going to get her hair done, and we're gonna be taking some pictures around the campus.

Work Stress

The past week has been incredibly tough for me. My old boss has left. Two new colleagues came over from the "other side". One, who's younger than me but has about the same amount of experience (because he didn't need to do NS) talks a lot. He seems to like to hear himself. He never allows anyone else to talk. And by talking, I mean lecturing. After a day of "interaction" (in quotes because it was really one sided...) me and my other colleague were immensely pissed off... we finally confronted him and told him, in very subtle terms, "F off. you're not our boss so don't pretend to be".

The other one is almost the total opposite. He looks young but has 15 years of experience. He doesn't talk a lot, is very shy, and lacking confidence. Even I could walk all over him... But he's useless. He sat next to me and kept peering over my shoulder at my screens, not giving me one ounce of privacy. I hated it. I was so stressed about it, I finally told my new boss (who, bear in mind, is pretty close to him). I think new boss managed to get the message across to him, because he doesn't do it anymore (or maybe more discreetly).

New boss also had a 1 to 1 meeting with me. Wanted to know more about me, about what I thought were my strengths and weaknesses, what I can do to improve the business, about my goals and ambitions and how I want to achieve them... gosh it was like an interview.

I survived the week though... because...

... I'm flying off to see L tomorrow. I haven't packed yet... I guess I should start soon. Will be taking some photos, enjoying some food...

Don't think I'll be updating the blog for a week at least. :)

It never stops...

Today one of my good friends left the bank. He was a junior, from Stanford, joined 1 year after me, into structuring, same as I. He's a French Jew - and that was really cool since I learned a lot about the culture of not just France but Israel - and learned a few foreign words. Like "mazal tov" which means congratulations.

We never got really close - somehow I always have this barrier up with colleagues - for the whole year that we were in the same team. It was fun, sure, but I never really considered him a close friend. But then I left structuring to join trading, and when things got really bad with the takeover of our bank, we turned to each other for support. We never did much together, perhaps played a few football matches, watched a couple of movies, knocked down a few pints, and I tried my best to be a "wingman" for him one particular party...

He's a really smart, funny and capable guy... the kinda guy you think would be arrogant and ambitious... but the odd thing is he told me some time ago he really respected me. I know, odd right?

The unlucky thing for him was that his boss, soon after the takeover about 18 months ago, moved to another team and he was stuck in limbo doing nothing for like 6 months. Two of his team of three were cut very early on. He got "absorbed" into another team but he couldn't manage to integrate himself with the guys who he viewed as sub-standard. He was like an outcast. As time went by he felt he was wasting himself away... and slowly began to wish he was made redundant so he can escape from such agony...

But I'm selfish. I didn't want him to go. He shared laughs with me...

He's happy to go... but I'm so upset.

The big boss who recruited me to the bank almost 4 years ago has also been made redundant. My boss was asked to leave the day before. And now my friend.

Fuck.

Ubuntu

I was spending a lot of time playing around with Ubuntu trying to get it set up the way I like it. I have a logitech keyboard and mouse and use a lot of the extra buttons on the keyboard and mouse for shortcuts and stuff. Took a bit of learning to get to what I wanted but finally I think I'm happy with the end result. All the programs I usually use works - except for Skype that doesn't have compatibility with my webcam on my 64bit OS. Its a really specific bug (only 64bit systems with that webcam with skype) so I doubt anyone would fix the problem... so I would still have to use windows to skype... But mostly I'm really happy with Ubuntu.

Many cool visual stuff too. First there are more workspaces (like multiple screens... you can drag stuff off the screen into another workspace and the whole screen kinda flips into the new workspace) and then there's other stuff like an "expose" feature that allows you to zoom out and see all 4 of my webspaces (default is 2). Or you can enable this cube thing that allows you to see all 4 webspaces rolled around a cube. Or like in windows vista when u press the windows-tab key and you see a preview of the windows open in 3D mode - ubuntu has that too. Cool effects like when u drag a window, the window actually squishes and distorts as you drag it so u really feel like your dragging a real object. awesome stuff man. And the transparency stuff is uber fantastic too. Check out the screenshot.

Ok i'm hungry.. gotta go..