Friday musings

woke up at 7.31am today. got into the usual routine, ate the bread multigrain bread pre sliced that i bought at swissbake at holland village cold storage. this was when i went to raffles medical mall to take stock of the directory. last night was crazy, finally browse through the straits times and saw that the land mall project we were working on was sitting on a piece of land that the government was acquring. and just like that WDP came to a close. a short but enjoyable stint. a pity, sometimes i wonder if the greater good is all that convincing an excuse. in a way, it seems like a way to overpower an individual, but every individual should matter, and its voice should be heard. and so the morning started by working on an updated timeline for the little retail. April would be a time of a mad familiarising myself with the authorities. in fact in the next 2 weeks, submission to the different LTA departments and CBPU. the puzzle is all in the plan. i need to buy tracing paper and thin markers. it is going to be a fun week of tracing and cadding. so it was nice i could discuss w K about the time taken, which was mostly 2 weeks and then authorities reply date. a little apprehensive about the positive projections. this year would mostly be getting clearances and doing tender, and from next jan, would be starting the construction if everything goes smoothly. n in the afternoon, i started on the feasi project. very challenging build, would be a fun exercise actually. either i go super early mon or go back for 1-2 hours on the weekend. maybe super early on mon would be a better bet. a new building added on to an existing 4 storey building. as such, the first 4 floors of the new built is like someone took a bite out of it. a big triangular bite. and the first storey of 10m to go up by ramp! it is going to be like an amusement park. anyhow it was good that C was here to discuss. He pointed out that the first thing would be the entrance position and then the placement of the structural cores, and because of the existing wedge cut out, after limiting it to sides, the next thing would be the circular ramp. and then the structural grid based on the carpark spacing starting from 7.2 to 7.7 and to 8, and the question was how would this bay affect the elevation. a few things i have to get right and placed in there though. a typical office core grid with staircase including the smoke stop lobby. my head was going to explode and this point. and then our neighbour office tenant did some painting, and the fumes came into our office. not long after i left. for some reason was hungry today, felt a little mentally hungry somehow. someone once said that it is when the soul feels hungry that the stomach tries to eat more to compensate. so i bought a duck rice with egg and beancurd which i threw away half, ha cheong gai 7 pcs for $8, and even bought a roti prata. L had mango juice after and i had a few slices of the fruit for supper. tomorrow going qingming. the musing of the day for me is that life can be like taking a straight bus, or taking 2 buses, eventually everyone gets there, right now i am taking 2 buses. really quite sleepy now

Thirsty Thursdays

woke up at 7.20am today, earlier than yesterday by 10mins. had the smoked salmon and leftover salami with the 2 ends of the bread n a cup of hot milo. caught the 8.35am bus, was worried that i ll be late but somehow got to the office door at about 9.02am. so that was a nice start to the day. today on the way back as i just missed the 151 when i got to the bus stop, i hopped on bus 80, and finally i took the 2 buses that have a higher frequency. it was a 154 and 961 i think, from the opp st andrews village stop. finally, no more waiting 15mins for just 1 bus! today was spent working on the comments the client had, more description before putting the comparison donut diagrams, firstly to start w the usage of the mall, and then to say why we chose the precedent malls that we did. it was a good exercise, gathered some GE picts with dimensions. indesign is really the tool for setting all of this up. thank goodness to the one who invented indesign. and also a summary of the 2 perspectives to highlight location of lift. all that was finally done at about 5pm. and along the way i spotted irregularities in the font type that i was using. verdana and calibri, alternating between the 2! terrible. when just finishing up, i started reading through the regulations for the other project. quite a lot of authorities. the journey begins! and just as i was going off, i was told to update the schedule for it by noon tomorrow. it was interesting to discuss the reason of the delay and in understanding which parts of the chart to move and duration for certain task. even though i have to say it left me a little apprehensive. the senior one today had a casual discussion abt the mall today. the barrier free access was highlighted which i did note as a design element to be taken. another one is the VRV system which could be considered as compared to the regular compressor system. This although more expensive, up to 2-3x the startup cost, is actually more efficient for the cooling load. Instead of the 8 individual compressors, the size is actually one big one almost equivalent to just 2 compressors. Very informative knowledge. In the evening went to L place to catch mom and dad as i wouldn't be able to join them on sunday as we got tickets for the port tour. had a chat w L for a little bit, and then mom, even played the piano. and by the time i return home was about 10pm.

Midweek celebration

Woke up at 7.34am, a second alarm.had a quick cereal and to the office.was the first to arrive, and the usual routine, boiled the water, turn on the aircon and started my computer. the first task was to get done the showflats column. as the project was using an existing showflat, there were some existing columns we had to be mindful of. and to highlight the changes. like where the column was 250x150, and our wall thickness was proudly 140mm with skimcoat. but of course we weren't sure of the orientation as well. so the options done were the ones we wanted and the ones we knew wouldn't work but had to put anyway just to show that we have tried. it took a little longer than expected because of the colors perhaps. Had wonton noodle for lunch and tried the avocado juice that wasn't nice. the old lady sold it so well by saying that it is the best in taiseng. terrible tasting. could only taste the skim milk. a big fail. rain again today, a big one during lunch but it stop soon after. The second half of the afternoon was spent finishing up the compilation feasibility. quite liked how the whole thing came together. the main part to count and approximate was the usage zone area for bedok point and raffles medical mall. a color coded donut. before i know it the day was over and 151 came by soon enough.lamb, couscous, brocolli for dinner. L did a big part of the jigsaw, and the americans season 5 ep4 is ready for watching.

Weekday supermarket shopping.

alarm rang at 7.15am but it wasn't until 7.30 that i got up. the usual breakfast of cereal with soy milk and a hot of hot milo. today was a t shirt day as i remembered feeling so hot wearing long sleeve yesterday. bus 151 to playfair road from opposite the highway. i quite like the walk from the 2nd floor across the pool deck to the back gate actually. started the day planning the 4 categories of zone usage, circulation, entrance and visual sequence. timing per hour of milestones seem to work quite well. i m currently using a chinese version of indesign at the office, but it is a wonder, how i manage to get those features to still work. and in fact i discovered a new setting, which allows for rounded rectangles. it helped alot for the diagrams. the morning progressed quite nicely, as i added the slides suggested by O; basically a sequence which helps guide the thought process. Just before lunch i discussed the matter of 1st April. i ate muslim food, rendang and saya lodeh in which i finally bought some fruits from the fruit stall. O left for business trip at around 5plus and we were in the eye of the storm. i went to holland v raffles mall to take a picture of the store directory in order to tabulate the usage mix. was trying to find a hard copy board, but all i could find was the electronic board. was so tempted to order the Unc Lapan fish from there, but it was going for $32 so i gave it a skip. had sliced fish soup from the hawker stall and then went into the supermarket. This time i bought all of the good stuff, clams, lamb, smoke salmon..etc ;) took a cab back and it was $10, not too bad actually, reached home at about 8.30pm. i have to say this is quite a decent time to be home by.