So where have I been?

I know, it's been a while since my last post. But as I mentioned then, I was supposed to travel to India for my mother's surgical procedure. I'm happy to say that the surgery went as planned, that she had very little discomfort during the recovery and is now on the way to a full recovery. A session of physiotherapy everyday and she's going to be just fine. So I'm looking forward to her being able to travel so that she can come here to live with us in Singapore.

After I got back from India, I was in Singapore for a whole three days before I left for an offsite meeting to Batam, Indonesia. It was a lovely time there, meeting up with some great people who work in our partner environment, a few of them with whom I got on very well. Then the ferry back to Singapore, just in time to pick up my bags and leave for London.

I was scheduled to be in London mid last week for a business meeting. Since one of my golf buddies has moved there last year, I thought it would be a good idea to spend a couple of days playing golf with him and catching up with him at the same time. The two rounds of golf, needless to say, were a complete disaster. Like the two rounds of golf in India (91 and 96), I shot 97 and then a 90 (on a par 70 course) to shoot higher than +20 for four consecutive rounds. The 97 was an even more disasterous round as I was hitting great 300+ yard drives off the tee and then screwing the shots up after that. Both I and my golf buddy decided that if we played as terribly the day after as we did on that day, we both would hang up our clubs. And sure enough, another terrible round ensued.

So, officially, I have given up the game of golf. I realized (after quite a few years) that I have invested a fair amount of time, effort, money and mainly emotions in this game for the last five years and I came to the realization that I am not getting good returns on any of my investments. So instead of making a mistake of investing more in the hope that there is a turnaround, I am cutting my losses and giving up the game.

It will take a while for the game to get flushed out of my system. I still take practice swings whenever I see a reflective surface. Most of the quotes I know are either about golf or made by golf personalities. A lot of my book collection, including books that I reach for most of the time, are golf books. But I am sure it will pass.

So long, golf.

Coming back to the London trip...my golf buddy took me to this bar in the city where I was slapped with a strange realization. The story goes thus.

We landed up at this place quite late in the night as we had to drop everyone (his family) home and then abscond for a boy's night out. After we stepped in, we decided to check out the lounge which, for some reason, appeared to be roped out. Since the music was playing there, we decided to ignore the ropes and walk in anyways. Only after a while did the fact sink in that most (read all) men were there wearing tuxedos and the women wearing cocktail dresses...we had crashed a private party. So without making it too obvious, we slinked out to the main club.

As the floor was quite packed (and since we were feeling so thirsty for Stella), we chose to stick close to the bar. Here's where the story gets crooked.

There was this girl who was being quite boistrous and dancing quite wildly around the place where we were. When we landed at the bar, she seemed to be with someone (since he was buying all her drinks). She however did not seem shy to grind away as she danced away with her back to mine. Being the gentleman that I am (stop booing, you ingrates), I did not take too much of notice.

After a while of dancing (and quite a bit of drinking on this lady's part...she was really drunk), she started dancing even wilder than before. She caught hold of my pal and had a few swings with her. And then she pulled him closer to ask him something. I chose to ignore what was happening and was instead checking out the other pretty attractions in the bar. My pal comes back as tells me that she was asking if I was gay!!!

I was sending out a gay vibe? Naah! Not possible, right? But then, how would I know? I attributed it to too many drinks on her part and let it go. And then the double whammy hit. A guy came over to me (seeing my ManU t-shirt) and asked me if I was going to Athens for the Champions League final. I politely told him that since ManU were not in the finals, there was no point in going to Athens.

But the gay vibe statement had been underscored. With red lettering in size 72 font. I had to do something and quick to get rid of that. Otherwise it would haunt me for a while.

So I turned my attention to the lady at the bar.

She was dancing as wildly as before, only this time, she was dancing with me. So we jived for a long time with me mostly trying very hard to stop her from falling. Which I succeeded in doing except for once...when she kept stepping back and did not notice the stairs behind her.

CRASH!

I'm sure she would feel the fall the next day, but that night she was on her feet again and wanted to continue dancing. The guy she was with kept trying to get her to dance with him, but I don't think she had any intentions of dancing with him. Cause we were having a great time dancing by ourselves. So instead, the gay kept buying her drinks, all in the hope of getting her completely drunk so that she would have no clue who she was with and where she was going. And we continued to dance.

We left that bar quite late, completely drunk out of our wits, knowing that we would get to hear a mouthful from my buddy's wife once we got home, but also knowing that there was no more gay vibe being sent out.

I think people just assume that if don't mess around, you must be gay. I don't think anyone pauses to think that you might be married and that the whole thing does not agree with you. But then, I guess putting up a show is as important.

Oh well...that was the London trip. Or at least the juicy part of the trip. The rest of it is the business meeting and a short walk I took to see Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, Picadilly and the London Eye.

Oh, and I also met with my Grandfather who's lived in the UK since...forever. Met my first cousin and her son for the first time and had a lovely dinner at their house...which was a pleasant change from the night before.

Then it was back to Singapore to be in time for my daughter's birthday. Yep...my little girl turned 7 last week. And I got her a Nintendo Wii as her birthday gift. She, and surprisingly my wife as well, loved the game console so much, I got another Wii remote (Wiimote) so that two people could play at the same time. The Wii is such an engaing game console which I think gets the fun back into gaming. Instead of just using your thumbs to press buttons, you now actually play tennis, do bowling and boxing. The first time we played bowling, my daughter beat both my wife and me with the highest score. In fact, my wife and I actually go exhausted boxing against each other. She complained of her arms aching even the day after. I guess it's good excercise!

We're now customizing a Mii (a personalized profile) for each of us. It's a fun console. I would very strongly recommend it.

So now you know...the reasons for not being able to post all these days. Hope this was a long enough (and juicy enough post to sate your appetites). I hope to be more prompt with my blogging henceforth. I still have to figure out how to purge all that beer from my systems :-)