Asian Tiger

Oh boy! Since I decided to start building a home office, I did not realise that I had plenty of furnitures and fittings to move around the house in order to make way for a proper office setup.  Everything is a mess right now  — I would gladly pay an interior designer to do up my home decor and home office to relieve me of all the mental anguish.

First, it was the sofa bed in the guest room. I have no idea where I should chuck this piece of furniture.  Next are 2 huge bookshelf that probably have books dating back to 20 years ago.  I guess the bookshelves can stay to make my home office look more like an office.

All the curtains would have to go and I’ll probably repaint the room colour from the current green to white.  Enough of planning and day dreaming.  First, to dispose off the sofa bed.

My kids are wearing me down; screaming, shouting and getting on everybody’s nerves. I think it’s their way of seeking attention. When I start working on my computer, my kids will crowd around me and demand to play with the mouse, play online games or simply request to sit on my lap. More often than not, they will conquer my desktop within 3 minutes and so, daddy’s got no access to the computer, Internet or work.

Now, I work a lot at home. I’m practically on my computer 18 hours a day for my day job as well as for my hobby in webmastering. I need to have my own space where kids cannot get access to me. Therefore, I’ve decided to build me a home office. I’ll convert one of my guest rooms to be my office. It’s a grand plan and I believe it’s going to cost me some money but it’s all worth it. The below below inspires my idea of a home office.

For the room, I’m contemplating whether to install air-conditioning or one of those Matthews Gerbar ceiling fans for ventilation.  I will have timber floors since walking on them are very comfortable (try them if you have not).  I will reuse my tables and chair while my equipment is all ready.  I’ve got my desktop CPU with flat panel LCD screen, the wireless keyboard and mouse from DELL, UPS from Merlin Gerin and my speakers from Altec Lansing.

I hope to complete my home office project within a month and hopefully I can share a picture of the setup like the one above.

It has come to a point where me and my wife finally agreed that we should have 2 cars for our household. With both of us juggling our jobs, careers and family, it is not always that we are able to commute to and from work together. Over the last 2 weeks, there were much negotiation between us before we decided that my wife will be using our current ride and I get to shop for my brand new pre-owned car.

I have been searching around and am torn between car makes and models. Since I’m looking for pre-owns, there are plenty to choose from. I’m staying away from Japanese makes as their prices then to be steep even in the used car market.

For the past few weeks, I have been searching high and low for some good bargains. Like I said, I stayed away from Japanese makes and looked for European and American makes. Initially, I was more or less fixed on the Mercedes Benz W124 models; either the 230E or the 260E will do. I’ve met up with many car dealers and numerous owners — all of them having a mind that a Mercedes Benz though pre-owned are to be sold at a premium. Prices quoted by both owners and dealers did not seem fair to me and off I went, looking for another make and model.

One of the many cars that my wife and I love is the Volvo V40; which is no longer in production. Prices are very reasonable and there are some lovely cars in the market ready for my possession. I asked around my friend who owns Volvo and all of them commented that fuel consumption seems to be acceptable and affordable but spare parts are generally expensive. Last thing I wanted was for my car to breakdown and the spare parts would cost more than my car. Poof! The dream of owning a V40 disappeared.

I am now at a lost. I don’t know what other makes of car that should shop for. Right now, I’m thinking of a MPV or SUV. Something like the Jeep Cherokee which looks very steady and safe. Well, I’ll be off shopping again; looking for a Jeep garage to chit chat with the mechanic (as some say, to get insider information) and hopefully the Jeep parts will not prove to be a turn off like the Volvo V40.