Colds and blackout - what do they have in common?

It will take me a while to update the blog with the pictures from Jeremy's birthday bash since I had more important matters to deal with since then. So those pictures will come in a backdated post.

Anyway, right after his bash, we had to take him to the paed on Monday for his compulsory MMR injection. Surprisingly, he did not shed a tear or scream or throw the usual tantrum whenever a needle is inserted into his arm or thigh. He was quiet and did not even move a muscle. He was especially cheerful and happy after that and even wanted to paed to carry him.

He now weighs in at 9.6kg
Heightwise, he is now 80cm
Teeth- 5 top and 4 at the bottom. Pre-molars are almost out

We have started him on Promise Gold. He is still at the moment an expert crawler, still cruising and has yet to develop the confidence to stand momentarily without support.

Also I have enrolled him at Gymboree Bangsar Village and his first class (Level 3: 10 -16 months) starts at 4.45pm on Sunday, 8 July 2007.

He had a slight cold a week before the party but it got worse during the week after the MMR jab. Somehow I figured that the two were interconnected. He had a runny nose which was so bad that it looks like a mini waterfall streaming down his mouth and neck. I practically used up 2 tissue boxes in the last 3 days to dab and clear the mucus. On top of that, his nose was blocked and he couldn't sleep properly the first night. And of all days, we had to spend that night at my parents' home and you want to know why..... read on.

Brain has been toying with the idea of getting a 42'' LCD TV for our living room (even though we already have one in our bedroom) for the last 6 months. He has been monitoring the price drop every month and bought the set right after Jeremy's birthday at a pretty good price. You should see my living room now - although it doesn't look ghastly, it looks more like what you would find in a bachelor pad. I tried to make it more homely by getting a new carpet last weekend. Anyway, that's not the real story that I'm about to tell......

Brain had to take time off work on Thursday afternoon to see to it that the TV was properly mounted onto the wall by the TV guys who had to drill fours holes into the wall to fix the bracket that will hold the LCD TV in place. As soon as that was done, they switched on the TV and that was when it happened - the ELCB (Earth leakage circuit breaker) tripped and cut off the power to the entire house. Brain and the TV guys who are supposedly electricians were baffled. Anyway, they managed to reset the ELCB to restore power and were then practically chased out of the house by Brain who was rushing off to Penang thereafter to attend meetings on Friday.

I got home late that evening to shower before heading to my parents place for dinner and to collect Jeremy. As soon as I reached home, I noticed something amiss. The light in my kitchen was off ( the light is controlled by a timer switch which is set to go on at 7pm each evening) and the electric gate wasn't working. Anyway, I managed to get in and tried to switch on the lights but nothing seemed to work. Called Brain - who was speeding up to Penang in double time and told him the situation. I checked the ELCB and reset it so that power was restored. After my shower, the ELCB tripped again. It was most annoying and I reset it again. It promptly tripped after 2 minutes. I was now really p****d. I called Brain and told him the situation. We decided to call the electrician the next morning. As no power means no air-conditioning for the night, it was decided that Jeremy and myself will spend the night at my parents place. And what a night! Becos of his blocked nose coupled by the fact that he has never spent the night at my parents' house and there were no air-conditioners in the house made him even crankier and he refused to sleep till 1 am. Even then he woke up every hour until 5 am. Nobody in the house had much sleep and were worn out from carrying him. I took a half day leave the next day to watch over the electricians who checked out the ELCB and every socket in the house. We finally discovered the problem. Those idiots who drilled the holes to fix the bracket for the TV, accidentally drilled into the neutral wire embedded in the wall. The neutral wire or circuit conductor is connected to the earth wire and that caused the ELCB to trip as currents were leaking into the earth wire due to the fault caused by those TV guys. Explained to Brain (who was in a client meeting in Penang at that time) what had happended and he was p @#$@# d. Our electrician had to hack the wall to repair the wires and cover up the holes back with plaster of paris before drilling more holes into the wall to shift the bracket to the left so that the holes are like far away from those deadly wires. TV was mounted to the wall again. We didn't bother to paint the wall as the TV practically hid those ghastly patches of plaster behind the wall. Anyway, power was now restored for good! Brain came home the following day and demanded compensation from the shop which sold us the TV. The shop owner was apologetic but that's wasn't really the point here. Brain told the shop owner that he was putting his unqualified electricians at risk by not checking where the wires are before drilling those holes. They were pretty lucky - in fact really lucky that the drill only damaged the neutral wire which probably saved their lives. If they had instead damaged the earth wire - god knows what would have happened... We would probably be facing multiple number of wrongful death suits and etc...

Also, on top of that, our modem could not work so we were without internet for a couple of days.

It was a quite week coupled by the fact that Jeremy wasn't well. I did not have the time to blog, upload pictures or work on my Pixart coffee table photobook for the last couple of days. Looks like I will have defer these projects till next week as we are all going down to JB (in-laws place) and Singapore this weekend. Our firm has given us the day off this Friday, 29 June 2007 - yippee!