Repairing a Chinook

I was at JRB with the newly posted guys and gals to have their military ID made and also do some shopping at the BX when I chance upon a old fellow name Mr Kelly selling some die cast model of military planes and helicopters. The Chinook helicopter capture my attention most probably because I am working as a rotor and transmission technician on it for the past 3 years and have develop a love-hate relationship with it.

Mr Kelly is such customer orientated salesperson, he offered to open up the packaging to show me the model. His shop is closing down and all the model is going for 50% off. This Chinook will be selling at US$25. Sadly the forward right wheel fell off when he took it out of the packaging. Mr Kelly attempted to fix it up but slipped his hand breaking off 4 radio antenna on the left side of the Chinook and a IFF antenna on the top of it. Mr Kelly kept blaming himself for his old hands and apologized to me. In the back of my mind, I was already thinking of an exit strategy to get out of the shop, maybe my hand phone ringing will be a good distraction? But Mr Kelly was one really sincere old guy and maybe a bit desperate to sell all his stuff ASAP. He offered 15 dollars for this set of Chinook which now require some super glue repair. Well, I saw the sadness in his eyes for screwing up his own sales so I shook his hands and close the deal at 15. Gleam in his eyes I saw and a good deal for me at 15. Just need a couple of minutes rectification.... isn't I a Chinook Senior Technician?

Its refreshing to see a White Chinook for a change.

Missing IFF antenna

Broken HF Radio Antenna

Right landing gear ripped off from hard landing.

The missing landing gears. An 'Air Frame' man job

5 pieces of broken Antenna. Jobs for the 'RC man'

Wheels back to where it belong using a small amount of Super Glue.

All Antenna delicately stick in place.

Hmm...something is still missing....

Yup! Always need RT man like me to fit up the signature 6 blades of the Chinook.

This model kit will be my humble little contribution to my RT section at Peace Prairie Detachment. We have a cabinet with a flat square top to place this one on.

Laksa...taste like home

Tiger Princess a.k.a Ah Lian Jie Jie made a bowl of Laksa for me today. It taste like Singapore, felt like Singapore and make me suddenly miss Singapore (for all its food obviously). I gobbled it down in 5 mins without even considering taking a picture of it...what a pity.

Pictures Of The Week

A warm Dinner of home cooked Fried Rice is a welcoming relieve for all of us out in the cold. Thanks to all you guys and gals who came over after dinner to support our action.

Happy Post-Thanksgiving Day gift from Officer J.Payne (Pain lah) from the Irving Police Department. Price of Parking in FireLane? US$130...

Endured 15 hours of Cold on Thanksgiving Day

After 15 hours of survival in the coldest moment of my life in USA, the tickets for the Sony laptop was finally handed out to the line of people Q-ing outside Best Buy at 3am. We thought we were just not far ahead in line to get the Laptop and that 15 hrs wait and torture could have not worth it.
Alas, somehow God saw out perseverance hanging on to our sanity in the cold freezing night, with warm clothings and unlike those with tents, we were sitting in the open. We all were not disappointed with all the effort and we all got the ticket! Our Sony Laptop at US$399.99!!! YAAAAAAHHHHHOOOOOO!

The warriors that survived the night and got what they truly deserved. The Holy Grail of BestBuy "Black" Friday sale! The Sony VAIO Laptop.

I am number 18 in the line but not the last. 37 VAIO laptop were available in this store. Speculation earlier on said each store only had 15. So I was really luck I guess.

Very well written instruction on how to collect my laptop full of congratulation notes.

The journey all begins on Friday afternoon at 2pm when Ricky, me and Garfield headed out to scout for a BestBuy store to "Camp" for the day, expecting to be the first in line since we are almost 16 hours ahead of store opening time. Call it the Singaporean Kiasunism. We were so damn confident that we will be first in line but soon got shocked by the fact Singaporean are no longer the most Kiasu people on Earth. There are already a 30m line forming out of all 3 BestBuy store in the neighborhood and most came well prepared with chairs and even pitch tents! Really frustrating and the thought of giving up is already at the back of our mind. Than we decided to make a last try and headed to one really Ulu location BestBuy at Grapevine with only the Airport and Rich people houses in the vicinity ( don't think Rich people would wanna Q early). The Q looks shorter here and we setup our base. In everyone thought, even if we don't get the laptop, this will be an interesting experience. Its 3.00pm now...

There we are, the few guys at the end of our lines.

Me, Ricky and Garfield, its our first time in life Q-ing up long hours to shop and so are our 3 next door neighbor down the line. Together, we formed a Coalition of "Keep each other entertain, Talk cock Sing Song and Stop Line Jumper" forces. Introducing the Coalition member....

Riccardo from Singapore

Ricky from Singapore

Garfield from Singapore but looks like from Japan

Michal from Poland

Jason and Jill from USA!!!

We are actually quite ill prepare for the occasion. Me, Ricky and Garfield only have 2 layers of clothes top and bottom and we are already feeling the cold in the mid afternoon sun, Michal did not bring a chair. On the other hand, Jason and Jill are in right winter clothings. Ricky and I have to drive back to get some more warm clothings and thanks to Jie Jie for giving us a blanket each on the way back to Best Buy. Since Michal got no chair to sit on and no one gonna stand for 15 hours or sit on the cold concrete ground, I offered my seat to him while Jason got another seat from his pick-up and offered to me. So everyone had seats and everyone is happy.

So the next many hours into the evening we all chat and did a bit of cultural exchange. We talk about the difference in Military privilege with Jill (the women) who use to be in the Air force and also the kind of sentencing in USA and Singapore for different crime committed for now she is working with Police against Sex Offenders. Shocked and disgusted to know that in one of her cases she actually have to call in the SPCA because the offender is having sex with animals! Some even as small as a Squirrel! Damn.... Jason work as a aircraft mechanic for the 737 and we of course got lots of common topics in the line of work. We compared salary and working hours. For he only work 3 days a week, 16 hours a day while we work 5 days a week (going to be 6 for this month) and usually ends up 12 hours a day. US$80K per year compared to US$40K. What a difference. Michal shared with us Poland, culture and government and he tried to challenge us that Polish pay alot for car. Singaporean of course drive the world most expensive cars, all for the wrong vehicle class.

Nightfalls. All this talk cock session really warm the atmosphere up...mentally but in reality its getting colder and colder. I reckon its almost 5 degrees celsius. Even with the blanket, triple layer clothings and my winter socks. We often have to take turn to the car to get some warm from the heater. The line is getting longer and longer as well and I was wondering are they all coming for the laptop too? We all start counting down the hours the temperature counts down too every passing hour. Its so cold that I can hardly feel my toes.

It snowed for a while and stop, and snow and stop. Thank god it did not rain on us cause it sure will be worst to be wet in the cold. If I gonna Q again in the future, I make sure I bring a tent to stay in for the wind chill is torturing. Close to 3am the time when the ticket will be given out, I wonder if its the final test for all of us, the wind kept howling at its felt like piercing needles when it blows over the exposed skin on my face. We endured that terrible 10min of wind chill that felt like freezing.

The ugly side of human being was revealed when the BestBuy stuff arrived and ask everyone to form a line to get the tickets. Shit happen....a couple of F***kers from the back of the line suddenly rush forward and jump all over in between the lines in front of us. There was a moment of chaos when the right people in the Q were shouting and telling of the line jumper. In front of me was 2 Asian guys who looks like Korean or maybe Chinese like us who think that just because I have the same skin color as them and looks kinda like them that they can take the liberty and just walk in front of me.(in fact they look like shit head by jumping the line). Now this few trouble makers are not gonna get away with it that easily for we all have Q many hours in line not for some joker to sneak in. So everyone else is shouting "YOU ALL KNOW WHO IS YOUR NEIGHBOUR AND WHO IS NOT!". Those who have the rights to be in the line start pointing at those who are not and telling them off. A girl was pushed in the ruffle by another women whose not suppose to be behind us and she broke down in tears. The 2 Asian got repeatably call of by us but kept ignoring us. I was really mad and I just pulled one of them in the shoulder and shout "You better get back in line or I will call the cops". I wonder if they even know English at all because their face look clueless.

Eventually that 2 dork did bug out of the line not because of us but the professional BesyBuy store staff who went down the line and make sure the Q-jumper are sorted out of it. All goes well happily ever after since than. Not only do we all get the laptop, we manage to get other stuff in the store that is on our shopping list. For me? The Laptop and the Western Digital Passport 160GB Red Edition.

Yup, thats my second laptop. My older but much better specs Toshiba will be given to my family back home, mainly mum and sis.

Flu and Shopping Season

Ahh.....splitting headache, extreme fatigue, a slight sore throat and a block nose, this are all the symptoms of getting the flu. This few weeks in US is call the flu season and I don't know why untill I got a slight sore throat last week ending up a full blown flu yesterday.

Thats not fair, I said...I have always keep my body fit and healthy through lots of run and a good diet. Maybe I did not go for my regular run for the whole of last week except for that early morning run with the Emperor but WHY WHY WHY did I get down with the flu. Now I am just feeling really tired no matter what I do and the though of getting MC for the whole week linger on my mind.

Thanksgiving Day is this Thursday and on Friday, its called the 'Black Friday', an evil day where many merchandise store from electronic to toys and from hardware to clothings are having really huge discount on lots of item. That evil forces will lure huge number of Earth minions from all around the United States Of America to part their money with stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, Toy R Us and Walmart. A real time Google Map Satellite image will produce pictures having millions of dots representing human beings crowding around shopping areas. You get to find really dark deals like a Sony 15.4" Laptop loaded with Windows Vista Premium for just US$399 (usual US$899) or a Casio Exfilm 7.2MP camera at US$139.99 (usual US$179.99) or a Western Digital 500GB SATA Harddisk at US$59.99 (usual US$119.99). Here is a Thanksgiving Day ad leaked out from insiders of BestBuy,

http://downloads.bfads.net/BFAds-BestBuy.pdf

Alas, some of the very evil deals out there comes in limited quantity to ensure not too much "blood" is shed. It common to see lines forming outside each stores 12hrs before the Thanksgiving opening time reminiscence of the "Hello Kitty" line of Singapore. This lines people just like Zombies only have a singular objectives in mind, to grab the limited stock deal before others get it. Just like Zombies, they operate through the night, and could go without food, waterand sleep for that long 12 hours.

The Flu and Shopping Season are over lapping each other. I got the flu, and its 4 days before the shopping season starts. It will be my last Thanksgiving Black Friday shopping experience in USA and I sure don't wanna miss a moment (or deals) of it. It will be the very first time in my life I ever Q up for long hours to do shopping. On my list right now are,

1- Sony 15.4" Laptop from BestBuy US$399.99 from BestBuy
2-Seagate SATA/300 320GB Internal Harddisk Drive from BestBuy
3-Casio Exfilm 7.2MP Digital Camera at US$139.99 (usual US$179.99) from Circuit City

So the plan is me and Ricky will be to join the Zombies, Q-ing up at a Irving's Bestbuy at 5pm on Thanksgiving Day till the store open on Friday morning 5am. This should help us get the laptops and my Seagate harddisk. Next we will scramble to Circuit City right next door and get the Digital Camera. Finally I will head home and catch up some sleep because there is a chance that I will have to work night shift on that day. Next day will be Saturday morning and I will head down to San Marcos with couple of friends to do some Thanksgiving shopping of clothings and apparel for myself and Christmas gift for friends back in Singapore.

I pray that my flu will recover and I will have the strength to survive an evil indulgence in shopping from Thursday to Saturday.

Birthday on the 16th....

Today is my dear Sister, Rachel, Birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL!

and new update to my blog right side navigation tab,

- Pokemon Theme Song
- Baby Cherilyn blog, http://www.allaboutxinyi.blogspot.com/