Category: News

Another Baby on the Way

Well, Ava went to the doctor and found out she is pregnant, at this stage, around 9 weeks.

Happy, happy, joy, joy.

This was not as expected as Christina was, but there you go. So it looks like our birthdays will all hover around the middle of the year.

I’ll certainly put up some pictures when I get a chance, and for the meantime Ava is doing quite well, and just feeling a little tired. Hope it all goes a little bit smoother than last time.

Falling into Facebook

I thought I would never have anything to do with Facebook. Hmm, things change, I’m usually shown I’m wrong.

The social networking stuff is interesting. Here’s how it’s playing out currently….

I always had the Peter and Ava blog, which is where all my life updates were before.

I found Twitter, which is almost like text messaging for the Internet. Just the sort of thing I was looking at to fill the gap between the blog (which I feel should have longer posts with a little more stuff in it) and smaller general updates and small comments.

I also went onto Friendfeed which aggragates updates from various social services online and gives a feed of all those updates, they can be seen in the sidebar on my blog. So far it gives updates on when I upload stuff to Picasa, when I update my status on Twitter and when I update my blog.

Finally I jumped into Facebook. It’s certainly got a novelty about it and great seeing people I know. I use Twitter to update my Facebook status. The interface for twitter is great for my mobile phone, so I can update on the move.

Will I lose my focus with all this extra stuff?

Probably not, the combination solves a few little things I’ve had on my mind, like keeping track of friends, making small updates to my website, so that those tasks can be done quick and I can get them out of my head, right in line with GTD guidelines.

Investigating Skype

I’ve been looking into Skype as an alternative to using a traditional telephone.

Call quality has been improving and from opinions I’ve read about call quality, it’s somewhere between a cellphone and a landline.

The Skype subscriptions page states that for US$5.99, you can get unlimited calls to landlines within your own country, which also includes cellphones in some countries (not Taiwan yet, but I suspect soon). US$12.99 gives unlimited landline calls to anywhere in the world, but unfortunately South Africa is not included, so a local package will be my first choice.

To make it convenient, we’d need a telephone which supports Skype, without the computer turned on. This kind of phone connects to the wireless router to make the Skype calls. The total savings could reduce our phone bill by about NTD1000 (US$30) which doesn’t sound like much, but adds up over time. The savings would be even more if cellphones for Taiwan get included.

Just a little something for today.

Fourth Wedding Anniversary

As of January 24th, 2008 we have been married for four years.

The time really does fly. I remember meeting Ava back in 2002 and the year and half before we got married. Our weddings in ZA, Tainan and Taipei, what a busy year that was. And now four years down the road, it’s the three of us rather than the two of us only.

Ava’s oldest sister and Rice looked after Christina on Thursday evening and Ava and I went to the Pot Pie Cafe for dinner. Just a relaxing evening together and a chance to sit down for a chat and focus on each other, we even went to the stationary store nearby and Ava commented how it’s a treat just being able to do that without Christina pulling everything off the shelves. Although we love her to bits of course.

Don’t forget to check our movies and photos (both recently updated).

Babies and needles

Quick story…

Ava went to the Chinese doctor, but on a weekday, so I couldn’t help out with Christina. She went into the doctor’s office, and the whole clinic was quite busy.

While she was in the doctor’s office, Christina started to walk around to explore. When she went to the closed curtain, the doctor told Ava that there was someone in there getting acupuncture, they usually use the outside beds but it was busy, and that she would call a nurse to help with Christina.

“She’s got my needle,” was the next thing that was heard as she pulled one of the needles out of the poor patient.

Kids are just too cute, and quick. Awww, sweet.

I’m changing jobs

How are you doing?

Starting on July 23rd, I will be doing Technical Writing instead of teaching.

This involves writing technical documents for my new company iEi. I will know more about exactly what is involved when I start.

This has been some time in the making and I have been quite unexcited by teaching recently. It was great to start off with, but I really did need to move on to something else. This kind of job is one of the few other jobs that is open to foreigners here, just because the language requirement is English, and almost all other regular jobs need Chinese. It will be interesting being in an office environment, and being in the computer industry, which is such a thriving one here.

One of the other factors that made a big difference was that a friend of mine, Paul, told me of the position at his work (he’s head of that team) and that from seeing my websites, thought I would be quite suitable for it. So my ongoing thoughts about my career, plus the offer, plus the timing (end of school semester) were too much to ignore, and there you go.

I’ll have to get used to actually working hard again. I’ll have to wear long pants, even when it’s not cold. I’ll need to get used to work in an office. I’ll have to do a BIG commute (possibly and hour ride by bicycle or motorbike, up to one and a half by bus). I’m going to have to learn a whole new skillset. But its all good, I need something to push me and make me work hard.