RIP - My prescription glasses

Seems like Micheal Jackson is not the only one gone; my precious transition glasses gone too. It happened when I went to this river tubing at the Comal River with other bunch of NI interns to celebrate someone's birthday. Losing my glasses was one of the many mishaps that befalled me.

First, as I got into the tube, my favourite Hawaiian pants got torn at the butt area. It was so huge, my new blue coloured Renoma sports underwear was truely obvious.

Secondly, while I was trying to help my friend who fell into the water, I dislocated my arm, again. This time it didn't reduce (went back into the socket) itself immediately after dislocation, it got stuck and I had to excrutiatingly align my arm for quite sometime before it got reduced.

Then halfway through the river, I went through this short drop in the river which caused me to flip over and hit my head on the stone in the river and therefore losing my glasses. I tried to search for it but the current was too strong. My other housemates, Hon Mun and Hann Huei also lost their glasses in that cursed river.

Next, the river water went into my ziploc bag which contains my passport. My heart sank when I saw there was water in the BAG! And so when I took it out, it was really wet, some of the stamps couldn't be seen...

Yesterday was the worst day I ever had since coming to Austin. At least I'm still all right except for the lump on my head and the pain in my shoulder AND the loss of my perfect eye vision. Hon Mun has to resort to using his prescription sunglasses to see while Hann had to use his presciption swimming googles to see. Hahahaha.

Austin - Foods and the bad

My favourite microwave foods (except that Chow Mein thing, I hate that)... I eat this usually before my workout on my desk during lunch hour by microwaving it at one of the break rooms on my floor...



Loads of protein and low in fat! Tastes not bad too... Only USD 2 each... AND it's HEALTHY! *cough* *cough*

Taco Bell branded food... Ask me how it tastes like next time if you want to know... Haha

How to make crap food

Buy one Nissin's Chow Mien noodle bowl and prepare it from the instruction

Microwave it for 6 mins then whoila! Microwaved crap "chow mien" food... It tastes as bad as it looks... Luckily I only bought one for USD 0.99.

Maybe it tastes bad partly because I didn't follow the instructions correctly (I RARELY eat instand noodles, only tried this for fun) but I still don't like it...

My other housemates, Hon Mun, Hann Huei and Li Cheng also bought instant noodles. In fact, they bought way more than I do! At the present time, Hon Mun ate instant noodles for yesterday's supper, today's breakfast and lunch... Damn freak... XD


NOTE: Li Cheng tried his own Nissin's Chow Mien and he said it tastes all right to him... So this is my own opinion; you instant noodle fanatics don't start flaming me...

Another note: FYI, you can't find chilli padi or even normal red and green chilli here in US; at least in Austin... Thankgod I found a replacement...

Some interesting advert - T-Mobile Dance In Public (edited)

I'm going to deviate from Austin for this because this video is really cool! Watch it! J10 has the post on it...

Edited: Thanks to Kristin for showing me an EQUALLY cool train dancing with the Doremi song... I loved it! =D

Go here to see it, it's at the right side bottom video.

Buy Dig?

Last week Friday, I did something I dreamt of doing; I bought something online in US! Oh I did bought some stuff online through www.lelong.com.my and through the infamous forum (think Low Yat forum) but I’m buying it from one of the numerous online stores in US using my VISA debit card. I’ve got so many choices of stores to choose from! So I used Google’s Shopping feature and found the online store that offered the lowest price and went for it. You might be wondering what I’m buying… I bought my dream Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS watch (for those uninitiated, it’s a GPS watch for sports; if not sports what else for? =P) for USD 163 including shipping (FedEx shipping) which is equivalent to RM 570; it would cost me RM 900 to buy the same thing in Malaysia! So what I got is a bargain! Buying things online here is so easy! I haven’t got it yet, I went for the 2 – 6 days shipping time and it just got shipped today (the store sent me a notification along with the FedEx tracking number). I guess I’ll be tracking the watch every day until it arrives… This reminds me of a saying that goes “A watched pot never boils” which means, the more you wait the harder it comes… XD

Garmin Forerunner 305

I'm already thinking about my next online purchase... OMG, I'm becoming a shopaholic! Speaking about that, a movie called "Confessions of a Shopaholic" adapted from a really nice novel by the same title written by Sophie Kinsella is out! I'm not sure about the movie but the book is really nice!

Who cares if I'm reading a chic novel? =P

Power of an Intern

I finished my draft of the V&V Test Plan last Monday and Tim gave me a huge, intimidating book on “Introduction to High Speed PCB design” because I told him I was bored. Haha, most of you all would think I’m stupid for asking it but I actually like it! I hate doing nothing and unproductive (I’m not going to spend most of my time in the office to surf internet and play Facebook all day) so having something to do even reading a huge book is cool to me. Actually, the book is really interesting; it touches on how to implement high speed transmission without distortion in PCB design. Something like Digital Integrated Circuit subject I took last trimester.

Anyway, today Tim came over and we went through my plan and made a second draft for review with the other senior engineers. This is where I get nervous; I get to organize a meeting to discuss on the test plan that I made with other senior engineers so I had to invite them to go for my meeting! I never thought an intern could do this! An intern calling a meeting with other senior engineers to discuss something… I mean, since when we interns are even important enough to call other big shot engineers for a meeting?? Wow! I had to reread my email invitation and even asked Hon Mun to check to make sure I don’t sound rude for an intern. I used Lotus Calendar to set up a time (the software checks which time is free for all invitees) and place available. It’s so easy to do it.

Austin – My Daily Life

Gym at NI

The other side of the gym

Started from last Friday, I’ve got used to my working life at NI. On certain days, I’ll go for a nice morning run at around 7.30am and get back and bathe around 8.20am. Then I’ll eat my breakfast and go to work at 9am. On other non-running days, I’ll just go to work earlier at 8am. Then I’ll work until 11am where my stomach would be making noises (actually it’s around 10am where I’ll start to get hungry but I would eat some bars =D) and I’ll eat something at the cafeteria or my own snack before I head for the fitness center. On Monday and Wednesday, I would go for yoga (I’ve tried Monday’s yoga and it was cool though I had some cramping moments but I want to try again on Wednesday) for an hour and get back to work at 1pm. On other days, I would do some workout at the gym. If I’m hungry after my workout, I’ll just buy something like a sandwich or a meal and eat at my desk (we can bring the plates upstairs so no need to use any packaging). My work would ends at 5pm or 6pm as long I fulfill my 8 hours a day work. I think I can get used to this working life here… It’s a blissful life… XD On the same note, I might be following my manager, Tim to go for a run to the nearest public pool and swim there then run back to NI during lunch hour, just for the heck of it. Crazy Americans… XD

The shared shower room...

Locker room

Random photo: Hon Mun working very hard XD

Cliff Jumping at Lake Travis

Lake Travis

Me and Li Cheng

The Embrace (hug hug XD)

Our American friends brought us to Lake Travis; to literally jump off a cliff! The above picture is Hon Mun dropping down at the force of 9.8ms^-2 acceleration... XD He didn't even think twice about it...

Our American friends, Daniel and Nate jumping over

Can't find my pic? I didn't take the jump. Every time before I want to jump, my mind kept going through all the scenarios that would happen if I do... That bad thing of having a strong imagination... >.<>

Ribs... We ordered "All you can eat" of beef ribs, sausage and lean brisket for USD 19.99! I ate 3 huge ribs and loads of sausages and brisket... Bloated!



The menu

NI's Fitness center

I don’t know about other companies but this is one of few things that got me excited working in NI. I’ve said earlier about the company having a fitness center so yesterday I’ve just registered myself by filling up a form and gotten my member number and good to go. One of the employees there gave me a short briefing about the facilities at the fitness center, here’s a summary: the fitness center consists of two large rooms, one main room has all the usual gym equipments like treadmills, cycling machine, weight machines and mirrors (to perfect your masculine pose XD) while the other smaller room is usually for classes. We have a few classes – they’re already included in the USD 15 per month – among them is the yoga class (I swear I’m going to join that here! No more talking big now! =P), cardio class, strength class and the such and they have it all weekdays. So today during lunch hour – about eleven o’clock morning (my lunch time =P) – I took my light meal and zoom straight to the center with my spare clothes and towel - they have showers there. I did my usual workouts, but I got some confusion about the weights because they’re all in pounds, not kilograms >.<. Anyway, once I was done – never felt so strong before =P – I went for the showers and I was shocked; it’s those OPEN showers! No individual shower rooms; just a few big rooms with many showers. I can get used to many of American’s culture but this just hit me. Thank goodness not many were showering that time and I managed to get a whole room to myself saving me from having to skip shower and bear with sweaty body smell…

NI Cafeteria

Benches and tables outside the cafeteria building... It's nice and cosy out there...

Mopac B cafeteria, no foods here because it's already 3pm...

Cheap? Quite.

One thing I saw when they prepared the fried chicken; they actually measure the temperature inside the chicken using a kitchen temperature! Talk about Quality Check... They really take their food seriously...


Extra note:
Foods there in every three cafeterias in NI changes everyday so you won't get bored with it. In Mopac B's cafeteria, we have different counters for a variety of foods; one counter for sandwiches, one for grills, one for burgers, one for soups, one for salads and one for asians. So you've got plenty of foods to choose from and they're usually around the range of USD 4 to 5 per meal. Other cafeterias have their own specialties but Mopac B's has the most variety and I always go there to eat. Everyday I would go there excitedly to see what they're serving for lunch; they do list down the foods on our internal web for us to see but I rather see the real thing =D. Oh ya, did I say the foods there are delicious? Haha.

Austin Life - Groceries at HEB

I couldn't control myself and took this picture along the 3.7km walk to HEB from our apartment. I dedicate this to my dearest... =)

Serrano Peppers - They're as hot as our chilli padi but in bigger size!

Loads of jams! My favourite (favorite) strawberry jam =P

Aisle-long refrigeratorful of foods

Hon Mun's secret ingredient XD (it's made in US)

Microwave-cooked foods... Quite nice really...


Bloody cheap delicious strawberries!


I'm shopping as if I'm in Malaysia! Ho ho ho!



Another copy cat =P


Haagen Daaz! It's extremely cheap for us! It's like Walls ice-cream pricing range... In fact, there isn't any Walls brand here...


Everyone of us bought two each... And I finished two of those in two days!

That's for my own groceries alone... ^^