Ramblings: Professional Carpet Cleaning

Growing up, carpets were not practical in our home.  As it was hot and humid, cool flooring was preferred.  My first real taste of a carpeted home was when I visited Dear Hubby’s parents in UK for the first time.  The concept of a carpeted bathroom puzzled me.  How on earth would you clean it properly of stains if you can’t scrub the bathroom floor with soap and water?

Enter the carpet cleaning pros.  They’re quite the rarity in Malaysia where they mainly do office cleaning.  But in countries where carpeted homes are the norm, you can find them quite easily.  Call them in when you need a deep thorough clean of your carpets.

Check out Clean Fantastic f you’re living in Perth, WA and are looking for a professional carpet cleaner.  You can read more about their services at http://www.cleanfantastic.com.au/carpetcleaning.php  

Good luck!

Ramblings: House buying

Dear Hubby and I have been together for seven years now.  In those seven years, we have moved a total of 4 times due to his work commitments and rented more than our fair share in those years.  We’ve also bought and/or sold a few together.

When it came to property selling and/or renting, Jakarta (where we lived for two years) and Kuala Lumpur proved pretty much the same.  We registered our interest with a property company, stated our budget and other criteria and the company would generate a list of properties that matched our criteria.  Then an agent would arrange to take us out one day where we would view something like 6 properties in a row. 

Things are quite, quite different in the UK.  We did a lot of property searches on various websites long before we arrived in the UK.  A site that like that of sold homes mls was pretty typical of what we used.

There was no agent taking us around either.  We made our own appointments and often spoke directly to the owners instead of agents.  In a way that was better as we spoke directly to the people we would be dealing with instead of a disinterested 3^rd party.

It’s all ended rather well though as we’re now happy owners of a little house somewhere in Aberdeenshire!

Ramblings: Calculus

Hands up everybody who enjoyed calculus in school.  Apasal so few of you?  Calculus doesn’t deserve the bad reputation it gets among students.  It’s just like solving a giant jigsaw puzzle except instead of funny shaped pieces, you get x, y, z and other variables.  

Call me a geek or a weirdo or whatever but I actually enjoyed calculus very much at school.  I also enjoyed physics and chemistry a lot and my introduction to physics in Form IV sparked off a lifelong love of the subject.  Shhh… but Dear Hubby’s first ever present to me was a beautiful book on Richard Feynman, my hero.  When I discovered we both owned a copy of the same book “Genius:  The Life and Scienceof Richard Feynman” which was a biography of Feynman by James Gleick, it was as if the stars had aligned in the skies.  Tee-hee.

I suppose having a Maths teacher for a father made it much easier for me to grasp and love calculus.  Nothing beats having your own personal on-call Maths tutor 24/7 who has a vested interest in making sure you score that A in Maths.

For everyone else who doesn’t have a father like mine, you can click here for help.  Good luck with your next calculus test!

Ramblings: Driving test

Hi everyone, sorry for the long silence but a lot had been happening in real life.

For starters, we’ve upped and moved away from Kuala Lumpur to Aberdeen, UK!  While packing up our possessions proved easy, getting my UK residence visa was another matter all together but more about the visa in another post.

I am now sitting in our rented apartment here in Aberdeen, the skies are gloomy, there’s a very cold wind blowing about outside but I’m nice and snug here.  I’m also looking at guides on passing the UK driving license test.  I hold a valid Malaysian license and have about 11 years of experience dodging Kancils and Honda kapchais on potholed Malaysian roads so I’m heartbroken the UK authorities don’t believe in my hard-earned skill and insist I have to take a theory and practical test again.  My Malaysian license is good for a year, after which I can only drive on a provisional license.

The annoying thing about the UK system is I can’t take a practice driving test at www.dmvcheatsheets.com  as that is a US site.   The good thing about a UK driving license is that once I get it, I’m set for life!  Woohoo!

So wish me luck… I need to get this bit of paperwork sorted out and then I’m *really* set for life in the UK.

Ramblings: Printers

When I got my first printer, it was a noisy clunky dot matrix printer.  Remember them?  Mine followed me all the way to university where I remembered hearing the clatter of half a dozen printers almost everyday as students printed out their assignments.  I used mine mainly for printing out guitar tabs, which I would study far more religiously than I did my lecture notes and books.

Remember the excitement we all felt when the first colour printer appeared?  I used mine to print out a colourful sign that said “Quiet please.  Genius at work.”  I hung the sign above my study desk in the house I shared with 4 other university students.  However, I was rarely seen at the desk.  I was usually found at some mamak stall talking about world affairs or on the couch practising Hotel California on my guitar.

Remember how much it cost to replace the cartridges?  It used to cost a bomb.  Now you’ve got sites where you can buy stuff like the Dell 2330 Toner at a good price.   You’ve got places in Low Yat where you can buy refills at a fraction of what I used to pay.

As for the printers themselves, they’ve gotten a lot smarter and a lot cheaper too.  You know what I wish?  I wish they were this good and this cheap when I was a student and printing out reams of guitar tabs and “Genius at work” signs!

Ramblings: Drinking

I’ve mentioned before my father-in-law has vascular dementia.  Blood flow to his brain is impaired so his brain isn’t getting as much oxygen and nourishment as it needs.  As a result, his brain isn’t working as well anymore.  So he’s forgetting stuff.  He’s got almost zero short-term memory and his long-term memory is getting jumbled up as well.

My father-in-law is 80.  He’s attended quite a lot of funerals of people he’s known from his childhood and youth.  That depresses him because it reminds him of his own mortality.  At 80, you don’t need any more reminders than necessary.

So he figures “What the heck – I’ll have fun till I drop dead.”  So off he heads to the pub to enjoy a tipple.  Very English thing to do.  But at his age and with his condition, he can’t handle much drink.  Any alcohol just worsens his condition.  If I knew anything about how to quit drinking, I’d try it with him.   But he has a point too.  Might as well go out on a high.  I can’t say I disagree with his thinking!

So the family has agreed that we’ll let him drink but moderately.  That way, he gets a bit of fun but isn’t in serious danger.  At eighty, he’s entitled to it.

Cheers, Dad – have a pint on me.